The movie is by no means good. But I see it in a different way. I have rollplayed a lot and I think this movie accurately captures the rollplay experience. I think this movie is one of the ultimate "bad" rollplaying occasion movies. It has so many things that happens when you rollplay. Someone has made a new character and needs to join the group. Just have them meet him up out of nowhere in an allay and have him go with the group. Have ridicules challenges and dungeons the characters need to solve. Someone in the group cant think of a good name for his character so he just names him something idiotic (Snails). The only thing missing is a character dying in a overgrusome and unclimatic way at a random place.If you would do a YouTube review of this movie I always though you would do it as as if you where a group rollplaying and the movie was what happens in the campaign.

I originally caught this film at the cinema during the height of my enthusiasm for the tabletop game called Dungeons & Dragons that this film shares its title with. The trailers looked interesting and, of course, the marketing made sense since this was probably Newline's build up to Lord of the Rings the following year. Maybe that left no money or creative juice for this film - what ever the reason for the sheer badness of Dungeons & Dragons, I'm profoundly grateful that Newline did not take the same approach to making Lord of the Rings.Where to start?! The characters are really not characters at all but just archetypes and clichés thrown together. It's a little like the laziest ever roleplaying session: here's a thief, here's a mage, here's a dwarf. What's your thief like? He's black and he steals stuff. What's the mage like? He's evil. They are like cardboard cutouts with no life or chemistry.The plot is infantile and generic at the same time. Evil wizard wants to rule the world because of his lust for power and the characters (for lack of another word) join forces because they are there and need stuff to do. Again, this reminds me of a lazy roleplaying session. They have no motivation beyond the fact that it says so in the script. So, I was not invested in any of them and could not have cared less if they lived or died.The acting was awful: Stiff in most cases but, as for Jeremy Irons, completely over the top. I suspect he worked with what he had in terms of script. Still, my award for cringe-worthiness goes to Bruce Payne for playing Damodar as both stiff AND over-the-top.Considering the breath-taking visuals of Lord of the Rings only a year later, the visual effects of this film are disappointing to say the least. It has dragons even right there in its title but the ones you get to see look more like hand puppets than anything else! Costume and set designs are like cheap Xena-rip offs. Some weapons literally look like plastic toys.Finally, I was especially unhappy with how the film turned out because I had been looking forward to seeing one of my favourite games come to life. In this film (like in many game adaptations) I see no appreciation of the source material. I'll admit there are dragons and also a few dungeons in a generic high fantasy setting with elves, dwarfs and orcs. That's where any similarity ends. It was at its worst a quick cash grab with the name of a big franchise and at best an attempt to show that Newline could also do fantasy. I assume it left both fans of the game and fans of fantasy films in general dissatisfied. Recently, I found it again on Netflix but after watching some five minutes I remembered how bad it was and stopped. No need to waste another 107 minutes of my life.

Sometimes movies, based on titles alone get unjustified reviews, this clearly isn't one of them. A hackneyed script, jolted, terrible actors, who clearly didn't attempt to put a serious professional attitude to their roles. Even a fine actor Jeremy Irons, did not buy into this, it is clearly so over the top horrible, it would be fun if it wasn't supposed to be a serious attempt at a fantasy movie. How, or why this treatment was allowed to continue after a week and wasn't totally abolished and re-cast, re-director-ed, is beyond me. I originally saw this movie in the theaters, and sometimes after time, re-watching changes impressions, this clearly did not, a review after so much time, confirmed my early memories of this move. Its just terrible, it is no where even in the top ten of all time fantasy movies, even before some of the more serious recent and more modern works have come out. The one saving grace, was this early on CGI effects, did not look that horrendous, but it didn't even have that much of it. You should have a fine balance between the two, which this movie "could" have had, if the actors and script were not just so horrible.

To understand the pain this movie brings, imagine slowly taking off your own finger nail, multiply it by ten and then have it last for 107 minutes. Where to start, where to start. For one, the acting is tedious. Everyone brings a hokey performance, especially Jeremy Irons (I do not blame him). The story is bland, the development almost nonexistent, and the ending is the worst. There is zero payoff by the end, it technically just slaps the viewer in the face. The side characters do not need to exist, for they bring no purpose to the plot whatsoever. There is no end to the complaints one can state about this film, from blue tongues to the overacting craziness, plus the worst CGI dragons of all time. Don't watch this unless you enjoy crappy films or want to torture one of your friends.