Toronto

[ATTENTION: This review reveals content of the movie.]
Although I have tried several times since the age of ten, I never could quite get into Dungeons & Dragons (or any other role-playing game for that matter), so I can't rate this movie as a die-hard gamer. But, I am a big fantasy buff. And since there hasn't been a good fantasy film since Willow in, what, 1989? I just had to see this. I would have to say it was better than the previous big-screen fantasy flicks of the nineties, ie. Dragonheart (boring, no imagination) and Kull The Conqueror (terrible, kill me now to get it over with! ). That is not saying much, though. The visuals, while not very realistic, were nice to look at, and the story, while typical and uninspired, was not completely absurd. Where it lost most of its points however was the acting and the dialogue. Jeremy Irons must've been doing it for free because he was painfully irritating as the main villain, Prozacius or whatever. Bruce Payne, who played his evil henchman with a dragon thingy in his head, was also rotten, but then again, he was in Highlander: Endgame, not exactly lookin' good on his resume, know what I mean. Thora Birch went from a great job in American Beauty to a Queen Amidala ripoff who looked like a little girl dressing up in her mommy's clothes. Who else was there? Oh yeah, Jimmy Olson from Lois & Clark; the Fresh Prince of Izmer, Marlon Wayans; some goofy, bearded five-foot-nine dwarf guy (they had to tell me he was a dwarf, lest I never would've figured it out), this hot elf chick with a belly button on her body armour, and this other mage chick who got on my nerves (until she let her hair down and suddenly she was the hottest thing on screen). I'm complaining too much. It was better than I expected and it filled the gap between fantasy films all right. Still, no Willow or Princess Bride. Think of it as an hors d'oeuvre for Lord of the Rings next year.

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