Dungeons & Dragons 2: The Elemental Might

[Aslanna]

Saw this laying around so decided to grab it for evaluation purposes... No idea why it wont be released in the US for a few months still.

Withing 30 seconds of this starting I was thinking to myself "Can you rip off Lord of the Rings" any more? Fortunately once it got past the intro it's wasn't quite as obvious. Watching this movie I got the feelig this is what an EQ movie would be like. Be prepared for cheezy plots, dubious special effects and bad dialogue.

The basic plot is the bad guy (undead) finally got his hands on an orb (after 3000 year of searching.. I meant wtf was he doing with his time?) which was used to imprison the big bad black dragon so after 4 or so days, which is apparently enough time for the moon to go from almost full to almost gone, he will awaken, be freed from his prsion and wreak havoc across the land and grant the bad guy a boon for freeing him. The bad guy of course wants to watch Ishmir fall and lead over the blackened land. But wait... A group of 'champions' is formed to retrieve the orb while the mages stay behind in search of a way to put it back and thus reimprison the dragon. Will they be able to overcome the evil before it's too late??

The champions consist of a warrior, cleric, barbarian, rogue. and a wizard. A mini "fellowship of the orb" if you will. At the first hint of danger one of them asks if they really have to enter the evil forest and can't they just teleport to where they are going instead. Not exactly a model of bravery!

The rogue was probably the most developed character other than the main guy and even that wasn't a whole lot of development. We basically don't know anything about them except for the brief one or two sentence bio during the recruitment 'montage'. The movie is only 100 minutes so not a whole lot of time to do much. Pacing for the first half seems decent enough but towards the end everything is rushed to reach the (obvious) conclusion. The movie does provide a few moments of comic relief but I'm not sure if all of them are intentional or not.

I looked around to see what sort of budget this movie had but was unable to find anything but considering how little the original movie made it can't be much. Speaking of the original, I have not seen that but most reviews say it's pretty bad. So anyway, the budget... The special effects on this aren't that good. I thought the ice dragon was done pretty well (even if it did die in under 2 minutes) but the black dragon could have used some work. Basically anytime a CGI model moves on the screen you'll know it. Very unnatural looking.

I'm going to give this a 6/10 just because we don't see enough Fantasy movies being produced these days (although that may change with the success of LotR). That's a bit high for what you get but if you go in expecting cheezy, and manage to make it past the LoTR-ripoff intro with your sanity intact, it will provide to be decently entertaining for most people who like that sort of thing.


6/10

[Winnow]

I'll check newsflix for this but a 6 rating doesn't sound promising. I have visions of Conan the Destroyer in my head for this movie.

[Midnyte_Ragebringer]

I love Fantasy so much, I will watch it no matter what I hear from others aobut it.

[Zaelath]

I love Fantasy so much, I will watch it no matter what I hear from others aobut it.

Way to sum up your personality in one sentence, well done.

D&D was god awful.. certainly, that sophomoric production where the guys are playing D&D and their characters enter the room and kill them at the end was much better written and far more entertaining. "You're going to back-stab him with a ballista?!?" -- classic stuff

Perhaps the thin plot is homage to real D&D? I don't think most people care much about EQ's lore, or D&D plot, they just want to move on to the killing shit and getting phat lewts.

[Farrel]

EQ lore? urban legend.

[Zaelath]

EQ lore? urban legend.

Some of the 'lore' in PoTime had appeared to be written by Ed Wood. =)

[Hesten]

EQ lore? urban legend.

Some of the 'lore' in PoTime had appeared to be written by Ed Wood. =)

Hey, Ed Wood rocked.

GoD lore on the other hand seems to be betwene fucked up and missing in action. Basically why i hate GoD, you get a load of mobs thats out of context with the rest of the game, names of them are made by a 2 year old during a temper tantrum, only good thing about GoD are the loot (my monk got a Tacvi 1 hander last night, quite an upgrade from my old Cursed fang from SSra ). Basically only reason to go to GoD are to raid, the expansion sucks so bad that nothing else is needed.

[Bubba Grizz]

The first movie was so bad I was emotionally crushed. I had such high hopes for the movie because it was about the hobby that I grew up playing. It was very saddening. So naturally my wife likes to make me cry so she bought it for me on DVD. I'll probably pick up this next one too just to add it to my collection of horrible dvds for when I need a good cry.

They need to make a nice high budget series with good writing, actors and special effects. Or at least make a great cartoon series out of it. (not like Dungeons and Dragons the cartoon though)

[Kilmoll the Sexy]

I thought you only cried during sex.

[Bubba Grizz]

Only with you man.

[Aslanna]

They need to make a nice high budget series with good writing, actors and special effects.

Speaking of that.. I watched the 2023 Dungeons & Dragons:Honor Among Thieves movie and I found it quite entertaining. Surely better than the ones they made 20 years ago that I had totally forgotten about. Until seeing this thread.

8.5/10