Dungeons and Dragons Review
by Michael Lee

I had no illusions that this would be a good film -- and it is definitely not one, but it is very funny if you are in the right mood for it. It is absolutely a teenager's D&D game brought to life -- with cameo appearances by people only a group of real geeks would recognize [Tom Baker and Richard O'Brien], clear moments where you can say "oh, this guy was clearly the DM's best friend, so they got together when the rest of the gaming group wasn't around." The plot is a mess; it is, well, a bunch of different set pieces slapped together as you'd expect in a role playing game module.

References abound; it's got elements of Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark especially. Even the music at times sounds like someone who has been listening to the Star Wars soundtrack recently.

Jeremy Irons must have done some horrible crime to get in this -- but he's clearly enjoying his chance to go as completely over the top as he possibly can. He clearly went to the Brian Blessed school before he started work on this film.

The acting in general is pretty laughable as well -- I can't believe that the Empress (Thora Birch) in this one was in last year's Best Picture, her performance was outright laughable in some scenes. Believe me -- if you thought there were times where Natalie Portman was a little stiff in Phantom Menace, you haven't seen anything yet. This is not a serious, good fantasy film.

This is by no means the worst film of the year; I had more fun at this movie than I had at Mission to Mars or The Sixth Day. It was awful, bad horrible, and I laughed throughout in the way that you only can when you pull out old pictures of yourself as a Junior High School Geek. I'm not convinced it was trying to be anything else -- it's not trying to be a serious fantasy film; just something completely silly.

Obviously, this isn't a movie to rush out to see, but it is still worth your time to see with your fellow geeks -- this will be one of those movies that will show up in the middle of the afternoon on the Sci Fi channel or TNT or a syndication channel for the next twenty years; like Legend or Masters of the Universe.

However, I think if there is a sequel, that instead of calling it Dungeons & Dragons, they should go ahead and call it Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. And I want a short midget Dungeon Master character as well. And I suppose we'll have to sit and wait ten years for the inevitable Magic: The Gathering film as well.

Michael Sanford also wrote a Dungeons and Dragons Review

Dungeons and Dragons

Three out of Five Beakers

Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Michael Lee stepped into the MISFITS Website and vanished .... He woke to find himself trapped on the Internet, facing pages that were not his own and driven by an unknown force to change the MISFITS Website for the better. His only guide on this journey is Professor Maxwell Misfittle, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Mike can see and hear. And so Mr. Lee finds himself leaping from site to site, striving to put right what once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home. Michael previously wrote a review of The Sixth Day.