December 8, 2000 | In the rarified genre of movies based on board games, Dungeons and Dragons distinguishes itself by being much funnier than Clue (1985), a nominal comedy. Unfortunately, the humor is mostly inadvertent – you laugh at, not with, this misbegotten enterprise – and practically nonexistent during scenes that are intended as comic relief.
A singularly dopey gumbo of derivative fantasy-adventure, Middle Ages production design and transparently fake CGI trickery, D&D suggests what might have resulted if, somewhere between Bride of the Monster and Plan 9 From Outer Space, the spectacularly untalented Edward D. Wood had miraculously obtained better actors and a bigger budget, and set out to film Lord of the Rings.
Screenwriters Toper Lilien and Carroll Cartwright have labored mightily, though none too imaginatively, to expand the basics of the board-game mythos into a feature-length scenario. Their plot is set in and around the mythical realm of Izmer, a land ruled by an oligarchy of wizardly folks known as Mages. The beautiful young Empress Savina (Thora Birch, in a performance of career-stalling ineptitude) wants to dissolve the boundaries between Mages and commoners, to institute a true democracy. But her grand plans are impeded by the evil Profion (Jeremy Irons), a haughty Mage with a vested interest in preserving the status quo.
During the opening minutes, as Irons makes his grand entrance by sweeping down castle stairs like Bela Lugosi on amphetamines, first-time director Courtney Solomon dangles the false promise of high-camp hilarity. Irons thoroughly enjoys his own honey-baked hamminess, and it’s easy to share his amusement as he rants and raves in a sandpapered roar that sounds like bad plumbing. Unfortunately, he isn’t on camera often enough to help matters very much.
Profion and (mercifully) Empress Savina remain on the sidelines for long stretches while D&D focuses on the heroic quest of Ridley Freeborn (Justin Whalin), a resourceful thief who’s bent on finding an ancient dragon-controlling scepter that could help the empress keep Profion in his place.
Whalin plays Ridley with all the smirky hunkiness that twentysomething actors customarily evidence in teen-skewing shows on The WB. Even so, Whalin is far less grating than Marlon Wayans, whose embarrassingly buffoonish portrayal of Snails, Ridley’s sidekick, puts one in mind of a medieval Stepin Fetchit. Pressed into an ill-planned robbery by his buddy, Snails wails: “I got a new name for dumb – Ridley. This is the Ridleyest thing I’ve ever heard of!” Memo to Wayans: Don’t be surprised if your work here is excerpted for use by Spike Lee in Bamboozled II.
Ridley and Snails are joined on their mission by Elwood Gutworthy (Lee Arenberg), a surly dwarf; Norda (Kristen Wilson), a plucky elf; and Marina Pretensa (Zoe McLellan), a novice Mage who’s kinda-sorta easy on the eyes. These good guys are pursued by an extremely bad guy, Damodar (Bruce Payne), a burly Mr. Clean lookalike who wears iridescent lipstick that changes color from scene to scene. The story ends back in Izmer, where hordes of chintzy-looking flying dragons blacken the sky in an obvious preview of the upcoming video-game spin-off. It is, quite simply, the Ridleyest thing you’ll see at the movies this year.
