Warrior-turned-politician Berek (Mark Dymond) and low level mage Melora (Clemency Burton-Hill) discover that the evil undead Damadar (Bruce Payne) has returned to the land of the living by freeing an ancient orb of power that held a dragon god in check. Berek, with four other adventures, an elven wizard, a berserker girl, a thief, and a cleric, set off to retrieve the orb before the dragon and Damadar can destroy the land.
Ah, finally, a sequel to Dungeons & Dragons, because there was so much more to tell!
Based on the role-playing game of the same name, the original film was a witless mess, trying for cute anachronisms while sucking talent out of several normally skilled performers. It did have a few nice looking dragons.
The sequel dumps the pretext of having gifted actors, since it didnāt work the first time, and gets some no-names that do better than the first batch. It also attempts to be much truer to the game. The film plays out like a long night around the table with a few friends and some dice. As I watched, I could almost hear the Game Master describing what the characters were seeing. Like in the game, a party of adventurers made up of different classes and races (well, make that a bunch of Caucasians and one elf) go from underground labyrinthine dungeon to outdoor battles and then back into another dungeon. Anyone with a few of the D&D instruction manuals handy could look up what spells and skills the characters were using along the way. The most amusing scene, for a gamer, has the party entering a goblin shamanās quarters and then one by one going through the gameās routine. The mage casts a āsee magicā spell. The thief searches for, and finds several secret doors. When one is concealing a chest, he checks for traps, finds one, and then uses his rogue skills to overcome it before melting away the lock on the chest.Ā This should sound terribly familiar to gamers. And right there is what is good and bad about this film. All the fights and lock-picking and magic spells are fun, but more fun to do than watch. This isnāt a bad time, but why watch it when you could just call up a few friends, get out the drinks and chips, and play D&D for eight or nine hours? Not interested in D&D? Then youāre not going to be interested in this movie.
The characters are nothing special, but only the thief is annoying, and I got to know them a bit better than I expected for a low budget sword and sorcery flick. The cinematography is competent, and the scenery is pleasant. The map paintings/computer effects are good enough on the city to create a believable fantasy setting. Some of the creature effects are less satisfying, but passable. Combat varied, with one segment being unintentionally humorous: as the berserker girl holds off an army, poor camera angles show extras running past her with no apparent goal; twenty people or more must have passed her by before scooting out of the frame.
While generally entertaining at a low level, things fall apart at the end when it turns out that most of the actions in the film accomplished nothing and the terrifying enemy turns into a wimp with no explanation (hey, he could fight in the first film).
The best use I can imagine for this movie is as background for your pre-D&D gaming session pizza party, just to get everyone in the right mood.