I Saw the D&D Movie So You Don't Have to! (Mostly Spoiler-Free Post)

 

Ok, kind of kidding with the title. I did see the movie Friday at the 1st "regular" showing my local theater had, but I had an afternoon date and it was the best movie time that worked with both our schedules.

I mention the date thing because she is not a gamer and had pretty much no clue about anything RPG related, so I was able to get her completely different perspective on the film.

It is important to note that this isn't so much of a review because I don't want to spoil things, but assume there will be at least one important spoiler that you may actually want to hear....I think it is important to hear, because I think this alone makes it worth seeing the film:

If, like me, you saw pretty much all of the previews and teasers, you already know the rough storyline. No....no you don't. The movie I saw was NOT the story that was presented in the teasers and trailers.

This is HUGE....at least to me. I am sooooo tired of already knowing what's going to happen when I sit down for a film. I mean it can still be a good time, but films hardly surprise you unless they go out of their way to do so. I can think of a couple of examples, but one is a big spoiler (the most recent Red Dawn flick) so I'll mention the Southpark: Bigger, Longer & Uncut movie. When the boys went hard R singing a few minutes in it was like a refreshing slap in the face if all you were used to was the TV show.....to me that was a great surprise.

Anyway, there was some good humor, plenty of Easter Eggs that didn't get in the way of the film (so no biggie for those that didn't recognize them) and I'll admit when the BBG fight went down I was going all Gamer and thought the PCs were going to zig...and they zagged. Did not see it coming at all and while I thought my idea was gamer-creative, I think it'd have been lost on the non-gamers in the audience and probably not a good cinematic/storytelling way for the PCs to win.

The only thing I didn't really like about the film is it just felt like there was a bit of name-dropping that might not have really added much, but my date didn't really notice because to her one name was just as good as another.

Honestly though, I think it has been the best D&D movie to date, which might not be saying much. It was enjoyable and I'll get it when it comes on Blu-Ray for sure. I would recommend seeing it, even if you bring a non-gamer. I'm hoping that they'll release a tie-in adventure or even a campaign (for all I know they've already done this) because there is plenty of main-storyline adjacent stuff to work with.....