Dungeons and Dragons, say those two big words (yes, I’m ignoring “andâ€) and you will get all sorts of people crowding around you. Jocks, preps, goths, and of course the nerds, geeks, dweebs, dorks, (aka rulers of the modern world) that are standard to these sort of things.
While I can’t say if the production cost was any bigger on this movie than the last one, it felt like it in the end. I would say that my biggest gripe about this movie is that at one point, they used a knife that seemed to be made out of either plastic or painted wood. I wasn’t able to tell exactly though. This is near the end, and you know that they had other knives in the movie that would have been no problem to use. So why in the name of the gods did they use this other one? It was so… round… and so… blarg!
And blarg will be the response of almost any movie go’er that sees this movie. While I feel it is a leap from the first one, it isn’t that big of a leap. Taking place around 100 years after the first one, Damodar (once again played by Bruce Payne) is out for some power and revenge. He plans on getting these by releasing a huge black dragon so that it can destroy a good portion of the world, with hopes that it’ll like him enough that it’ll let him rule over some of it.
Here is a question, can’t this guy let go of dragons? Why can’t he get some revenge with, I dunno, an evil centaur or something. He does have what seems to be a half-orc side kick. The reason I think it was suppose to be a half-orc is because you see the picture for them straight from the player’s handbook shortly before you see him. Low and behold he has the exact same hairstyle as well.
Anyway, Damodar first he has find a dark orb which he’ll need to use in order to release the black dragon. By doing so, he rids himself of that pesky undead curse that’s been plaguing him for oh so long.
Next thing you know, an apparently grand former knight by the name of Berek is twirling a sword with some of the newer knights before he goes and watches his wizard wife, Melora, play with some divine magic.
While I have never been one for doing the whole multi-class thing, she thinks it’ll be grand fun thing to do. In the process she gets a dark vision, blows apart a chunk of her house and finds out that four of her tomes are really meant to be a single book. Which just so happens to be the book with instructions on how to stop the black dragon (lucky that).
From there a few other adventurers are wrangled up and they head on out. You have your classic Elven wizard, who is of the female variety. Then you have your huge hammer wielding priest. Whose introduction power is far more impressive than anything he does throughout the entire film. The female warrior wears leather and has an uncontrollable thirst for conflict (to us D&D nerds, these are called barbarians). But somehow finds a way to come out unscathed in each fight, even though she is wearing only slightly more than a summer-wear model for Victoria Secret. Last but not least there is the rogue, who is a hafli…. I want to tell you he’s a halfing, but really I can’t. The rogue is just a bit shorter than the rest and I believe is just a scruffy old husky human. If you pretend he is a Halfling, all the better.
Throughout their wacky adventure they’ll come across scary things, really scary things, like a lich. Yeah, a lich comes out to play. He oddly resembles the dark being from Earthsea. Oh well, he’s better than an illusionary dracolich.
He isn’t the only “oh no!†monster in this movie, you see a total of two dragons. One the group has to face and the other one is the legendary black dragon .
This first dragon, even being the D&D nerd I am, I couldn’t tell you what kind it is. All I can tell you is that it breathes a frost style breath weapon, yet it goes after the group in the middle of a forest. I personally couldn’t figure out exactly why this kind of dragon showed up. Sure I could accept that a dragon got sent by the all scary Damodar, but an artic one? Come on.
Then you insert a doubly quick ending battle and a general style ending.
This movie had some decent sets (when compared to other things), some bad outfits, questionable actions and so on. If you are a, and let me emphasis this to the extreme, hardcore D&D’er, you might (emphasizing the might) enjoy this movie. At absolute most, this is a rental for us fans. If you aren’t a fan, why would you watch it? Save your sanity and go get something that won’t broaden your horizons.
Even though it was a \"made for TV movie\", it could have been heaps better.
"Dungeons & Dragons 2: Wrath of the Dragon God" opens October 8, 2005 and is rated PG13. Adventure, Fantasy. Directed by Gerry Lively. Written by Robert Kimmel, Brian Rudnick . Starring Mark Dymond, Clemency Burton Hill, Bruce Payne.
