Dungeons and Dragons in Film

Here we discuss the various attempts and fails to bring the Dungeons and Dragons IP to the Silver Screen.

Dungeons and Dragons (2000 film)

No, this is not a LARP photo, this is from the theatrical movie

In the land of Izmir the mages rule and everyone else is oppressed by them, apparently. The Empress wants to change that while evil mage-guy Profion (played by Jeremy Irons hamming it up like it's overtime at the meat smoking plant) wants to keep it this way and take over the world (of course!). Problem is that the Empress has a sceptre that lets her control Yellow Dragons. So Profion set out to get another sceptre that would let him control Red Dragons. A couple of Rogues (a white guy called Ridley Freeman and his 90s comedic black sidekick Snails, guess who dies) get caught up with a apprentice mage named Marina in a plot to get that Staff while being harried by Profion's blue-lipped minion Damodar and his discount warrior dudes. Some Dungeons and Dragons brand monsters make cameos, like a beholder chained up as a guard dog.

It's pretty bad. Not vile, nor godawful and it might have some "so bad it's good" charm, but it's still bad. Unsurprisingly it bombed at the box office. It also came out a year before The Fellowship of the Rings which blew it out of the water like a nuclear depth charge. Still, it got some Made for TV sequels.

Dungeons and Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God (2005)

Also called The Elemental Might for...some reason. A straight-to-TV sequel to the above, which goes to show just how well the original film sold. That said, absolutely nobody from the last one returns except for the creepy blue-lipped lackey. Said lackey, somehow managing to cheat death via what amounts to DM fiat, manages to steal a powerful artifact and awakens a sealed dragon to destroy Izmir. To counter this, a party is assembled of the most basic variety - a Fighter, an Elf Wizard, a Cleric, a Barbarian, and a Chaotic Asshole Rogue - to find this orb and steal it back before the dragon can wake up.

Due to this having less of a budget, it's clearly got a lot less going for it, but it makes the crap we get a touch more tolerable. It feels like the people behind this one actually seemed to be more aware of D&D than the last bozos, and thus are able to integrate a lot more lore and flavor to it. That said, it's not nearly as memorable for being so awful, it's just bleh.

Dungeons and Dragons 3: The Book of Vile Darkness (2012)

Another straight-to-TV film from Germany that has absolutely no ties to the previous ones despite being called D&D 3. Considerably a lot more grimdark, in a bit of a swerve. It's all focused on the titular book, which in this film was actually made when an insane necromancer wanted to become immortal and got his flesh flayed to transform into the book's pages and was then split into pieces and sealed away. In hopes of finding his missing father, a young knight of Pelor has to join with a part of various shades of Stupid Evil that are hired by a dark lord to re-create the book. Notably, it manages to portray a rather decent character arc by having him bend his morality and his code in order to survive with a party that mostly hates his guts. Mostly because the one token female of the group turns out to develop feelings for him. Somehow.

Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight (2008)

A straight-to-DVD animated adaptation of the first modules of the Dragonlance setting, with hopes of a full series. The fact that this movie was just so awful saw those plans go up in smoke. And not the hammy sort of awful like the 2000 movie. It's just very lazily done, with notable sore spots being the very egregiously 3D like on the Draconians, shitty animation, and a janky framerate. Also has some absurd fixation on boobs. Most notably, it had quite a few high-profile voice actors including Keifer Sutherland and Lucy Lawless.

Not helping things are the niggling criticisms that've haunted the original novels it was based on, namely the fact that it's all very painfully derivative with its characters and setting - all then put through the filter of Hollywood to make it worse.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)

The black dragon appears for only like one scene, but it's super cool so who cares?

A new big budget DnD movie had been in Development Hell since 2013 due to licensing issues. Eventually these got sorted out and production was put under way, releasing in theatres on March 31st and starring Chris Pine and Michelle Rodriguez.

In general it's gotten decent reviews by critics and audiences, with 90% on Rotten Tomatoes and 76% on IMDB. Despite these rather good scores the movie looks to be on course to barely break even in the box office, possibly killing any extended franchise in the cradle. Seems like releasing the movie between the Mario Movie and John Wick Chapter 4 is a fucking stupid idea.

Taking place on the Sword Coast, the Bard, Edgin, and the Barbarian, Holga, are arrested and imprisoned by the Lords Alliance during a botched heist on behalf of a mysterious wizard called Sofina. Two years later the duo escape prison and discover that another former party member, a smooth talking con artist called Forge, has become Lord of Neverwinter and is in possession of both Edgin's daughter and a magical tablet that can be used to bring Edgin's dead wife back from the dead. Now the two must assemble a team and plan a heist to retake what is rightfully theirs... and discover a plot that threatens the entire city.

Uncharacteristically of a Dungeons and Dragons movie, the film is actually pretty good. It's well-plotted and competently directed, hits the story beats fine, has a good bunch of comedic moments, and tons of background references and monsters and spells and other D&D shit - even the kids of the cartoon showing up in a cameo. There's almost no cringe of the other movies involved, save maybe deliberately with a couple jokes.

But the most important thing? It actually behaves like an actual D&D campaign, one you can easily imagine being played out by a bunch of geeks around a tabletop. You can tell exactly where someone rolled a natural 1, where the party fucks up so badly they can't move forward and the DM has to introduce a hasty workaround, where the DMPC shows up to hand out loredrops and upstage everyone before (thankfully) bailing out halfway through, maybe even where the druid's player couldn't make it so she had to be sidelined for a bit. You can groan as some idiot picks up the treasure before checking it for traps. And speaking of traps... of course, in a campaign centered around pulling a dangerous heist, not one player rolled up an actual rogue.

It's also pretty straightforward and predictable and doesn't try to reinvent the wheel. But let's not set our standards too high, nobody goes to a D&D film expecting Hitchcock or some shit. It's a fun romp that pretty accurately reflects the whole hobby, that's all you're here for, and that's what you'll get.

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