Dungeons & Dragons (2000) was a passion project turned cinematic disaster

Dungeons & Dragons is an independent movie, born from the unrelenting passion of one man, Courtney Solomon, an avid fan of the game who became a producer and a director just to create this film. Solomon obtained the rights for a D&D movie from then-owner TSR in 1991, but it took almost 10 years for the production to start. TSR is still infamous for its poor business practices, and it was only when Wizards of the Coast obtained the IP that the movie could be shot. Meanwhile, the budget went from $100 million to $35 million. Along the way, Dungeons & Dragons also lost the interest of big studios and important directors.

The result is a poorly-written and directed movie with embarrassing CGI effects, even for the time (The Fellowship of the Ring came out just one year later).

The film follows a pair of thieves, Ridley (Justin Whalin) and Snails (Marlon Wayans), who get entangled in a plot by the evil mage Profion (Jeremy Irons) to dethrone Empress Savina (Thora Birch) of Izmir, a country where mages and non-mages are divided into different classes. Sabina wants to bring an end to the discrimination, backed by the power of her sceptre that allows control over gold dragons. Profion is looking for a similar item that gives power over red dragons, and our heroes happen to steal the only map that leads to it.

Irons was having his “Raul Julia in Street Fighter” experience here, otherwise you can’t explain his presence in the movie or his constant over-the-top acting.

Dungeons & Dragons gets a lot of shade for its poor CGI (the dragons being perhaps the worst offenders), but the real culprit is the script. Solomon wrote it, but in interviews, he blamed TSR, which he said had approval over both the script and the director. (TSR owner Lorraine Williams allegedly refused both Francis Ford Coppola and James Cameron as directors). The plot is basic and convoluted at the same time (Solomon planned it as the first installment of a trilogy, and it shows in the mysterious ending). The dialogue sounds like what an uninspired kid might say at a D&D table.

The prize for most cliché lines in a movie filled with them goes to Empress Savina. During her sporadic appearances on screen, she spouts the type of trivial utopian nonsense you’d expect from a first-year college student who just attended their first class of Introduction to Sociology and is suddenly really into Marx. The whole equalitarian subplot feels strikingly out of place in the movie, and it only makes you cringe more when you realize the protagonists’ surname is “Freeborn.” Subtle.

However, Dungeons & Dragons apparently really cared about these things, so much so that it introduced a Black elf character 20 years before The Rings of Power made legions of nerds angry. This would have been a great accomplishment if the elf in question, Norda (Kristen Wilson), didn’t have a grand total of three full lines, and if she didn’t wear one of the most exaggerated versions of the “armor with breasts” trope (this one even has nipples). She’s still better than the dwarf, Elwood (Lee Arenberg), who has the worst fake beard in the history of cinema and manages to accomplish absolutely nothing in the entire movie.

The film isn’t entirely devoid of quality, however. You can tell Solomon knew and loved the game. There are scenes and lines of dialogue that look and sound exactly as they would during a D&D session. The rogue trying to steal a giant dragon tooth that clearly doesn’t fit anywhere is one of the most D&D things I’ve seen. A few times, the banter is on point, and the references to the tabletop game are fun. (“I’d have to put a Feeblemind spell on myself to bring you home” is my favorite.) The sequence in the thieves’ guild is pretty good, and it shows knowledge of how traps work in the game. Whoever wrote it must have PTSD from some truly evil DM.

Unfortunately, this “home game feeling” that could have carried the movie through its honesty is buried under a pile of cinematic rubbish. In one scene, the heroes infiltrate the camp of the bad guys, and one of them says, “Look, Beholders!” pointing to one of the most feared and iconic monsters in D&D, who is just following some guards around as an oversized, floating, and badly-CGI’d police dog. Later, when Wayans’ character is killed (probably as punishment for the actor wanting to improvise most of his lines), Ridley’s immediate reaction is to drop to his knees and yell “NOOOOO!” which confirms that Solomon’s main inspiration for this movie was Star Wars, as he said.

Truly, Dungeons & Dragons is a D&D movie made by a fan in the best and (mostly) worst sense. You’d expect a novice DM to throw some Beholders as guards in a camp because it’s cool. Thirty minutes before the end of the movie, two nameless side characters drop the bomb that the protagonist “doesn’t know about his true potential.” Neither did we, the audience, as this was never teased or alluded to. I’m an experienced DM, and I can recognize a last-minute plot twist when I see one.

Unfortunately, you cannot write a movie in the same way you write a D&D campaign. Solomon was 20 years old when he started working on Dungeons & Dragons, and whether we want to blame the messy result on his inexperience, budget cuts, or corporate interference, this movie remains an incredible achievement of passion and fandom. It wasn’t a total commercial flop, either, considering it spanned not one but two sequels. I don’t suggest you look them up.