In 1985, when Dungeons & Dragons Entertainment Corp. was headquartered out Hollywood way (Beverly Hills, to be precise) and talk was circulating about a Dungeons & Dragons movie, I sent a copy of Dream Park to Gary Gygax (my geekiness knows no bounds) with the suggestion that it would provide an excellent basis for such a movie, as it incorporated not only the expected dungeon crawl and sword and sorcery elements, but gaming elements, as well as science fiction, mystery, and historical elements that would broaden the appeal of the movie. I received back a reply from Gary (yes, I still have it, I am compulsive in my geekiness) that he would "persue it" (sic). Whether that meant he would peruse it or pursue it, I don't know. I only wish he had done either one.

A mere fifteen years later, Dungeons & Dragons: The Movie has appeared on the big screen (for at least a few weeks before it is consigned to low turnover video bins), amidst a blast of rapid cut TV commercials assuring us that "THIS IS NO GAME". For once, the previews and trailers are almost right. What they should say is "THIS IS NO MOVIE". Or, at least, not a very good one. Nor is the film a particularly good representation of the game of Dungeons & Dragons. To be about the game, I wish that the movie had worked in the role-playing aspect of Dungeon's & Dragons in some way—anything from a simple intro with kids playing the adventure which then took shape on the screen to the types of mechanisms that were used in Dream Park or Joel Rosenberg’s Guardians of the Flame series to put gamers in a fantasy setting. At the very least, it seems that any movie about the game should be about an adventuring group--rather than random people thrown together for a few chase and fight scenes (perhaps that is my Classics prejudice versus the prevailing Living City norm)—so that you get some character interaction and personality conflicts with some history behind them.

Instead, we get a sword and sorcery movie in the mold of Krull: The Conqueror, Conan: The Barbarian, or Xena: Warrior Princess. While not of the abysmal quality and production values of the video insert to TSR's DragonStrike game in 1993 (filmed in HyperReality!), the plot and dialogue of Dungeons & Dragons: The Movie are at least as cheesy as any of the foregoing. And let me tell you, this cheese has been sitting out in the sun too long. We don’t need this movie to explain a basic dungeon crawl to mundanes. That is much better done by pointing to the opening sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark or the closing sequence of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. We need a movie that shows the camaraderie and group dynamics and the depth and versatility of a good role-playing experience. None of that here. Instead, your only hope is to laugh your way through the hokeyness of the movie and pretend it is not the worst thing to happen to the reputation of the game since the false news reports of Dallas Eggbert III dying while playing D&D in the steam tunnels under Michigan State University. Then go home and turn on Battle Bots; you’ll get better hack and slash and more character development than anything in this flick.

The movie does have a cool carpet/quicksand trap in one scene and makes a few nods to gamers along the way. It references an odd spell or two known to gamers (like a feeblemind spell), has a monster or two similarly known (beholders, for example, which, unfortunately, just look incredibly stupid to the non-gamers out there and demonstrate none of their fearsome powers), classifies good and evil dragons by color correctly, and uses the old slide something down the dungeon floor trick to trip waiting traps. Whoopty-snot.

On the bad side, however, are things almost too numerous to mention. The movie and soundtrack both rip-off Star Wars repeatedly (the ersatz cantina scene even evokes the Star Wars cantina music). A bevy of human and beholder guards are avoided merely by tossing a pebble, which they all go to

investigate. The dungeon crawl through a trapped maze is actually a single corridor visible by a spectator gallery (behind bars), meaning that anyone could have watched previous, unsuccessful attempts and figured out how to thwart all the traps without ever going down the corridor themselves at risk. The thieves, especially Snails, are incompetent and noisy. The Thieves Guild is a joke. The three-eyed guy doing a Gene Simmons imitation is laugh-out loud funny. The Rod of Severn (a nod to the old Rod of Seven Parts?) is a hideous piece of treasure and easily the tackiest looking movie prop since the game consoles in eXistenZ. The plot is a murky mess (it makes the DragonStrike plot look coherent and interesting) involving a prepubescent princess who loves the people, has an arena legislative confrontation, and is willing to let thousands of her people die over diplomatic infighting (did I mention the consistent Star Wars rip-offs? Marlon Wayans or Jar-Jar? At least the right one dies.) The dwarf’s beard is about the same color and as bad looking as Strom Thurmond’s hair. The dwarf is also as tall as the elf—you know, the exotic female ranger wearing the boob-plate, I mean breast-plate. The climactic dragon fight is a hopelessly confused waste of computerized special effects. Worst yet, the acting, or should I say overacting, or perhaps OVERACTING, or even BEYOND WILLIAM SHATNER QUALITY OVER THE TOP HIDEOUSLY BAD OVERACTING is so broad and so awful that it has to embarrass serious gamers. I haven't seen the like since the days of RPGs like Teenagers From Outer Space or Bond, that were supposed to be outrageous and stupid (well, except in a few Paragon rounds).

Speaking of stupid, the evil henchman’s blue lipstick (a nod to Vampire LARPers?) was stupider and more distracting than the fanged snake garrote critters that came out of his ears on occasion as a kind of monster-induced alignment check. Yep, that is sure an image I want the world at large to think about when they find out that I game. And to top off everything else off, there is even the ultimate (albeit probably unintended) nod to gamers, as the final battle scene is interrupted with a bad incidence of apparent boxed text, with Jeremy Irons' character dropping the Rod that controls the dragons and prattling on and on and on when somebody could and should be putting him and us out of our respective misery. I spent my time at the movie (a) concentrating on eating my buttery popcorn, (b) laughing out loud other than at places where I was supposed to, (c) trying to see if I could recognize Gygax or Arneson in the cameos I had heard they were to play, and (d) wondering if the whole point of this movie was to make Clue, Wing Commander, and Super Mario Bros. look like good gaming-related movies.

Here's a thought for the guys at WoTC or elsewhere that may be thinking of another movie—try the original Dragonlance Chronicles. At least you have a world known to gamers, a true adventuring group with interesting and historical character interactions, and a property you probably already own. Maybe you should "persue it" (sic). Disclaimer: I have written for TSR and WoTC and am currently writing for the Dragonlance world of Krynn, so I may be prejudiced in both my suggestion and my review. Imagine how much worse this review could have been absent such conflicts. . .I can imagine quite a lot.