Dungeons & Dragons (2000)

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1. 

   dpanter

   I came in my pants from happiness when they killed off Marlon Wayans.
   Metascore: 14/100 12 years 7 months ago
2. 

   Pauljt1980

   Why do actors such as Jeremy Irons let themselves get cast in utter drivel like this? 9 years 8 months ago
3. 

   karuss

   Pretty bad, but not without its pleasures. I appreciated the innocence that permeates the whole production, including its schizophrenic politics (the ending: a "classless" utopia where good emperors and good knights have more power over everyone else. Um, okay?).
   
   This was Courtney Solomon's (Getaway) first film, and you can already see how preoccupied he is with expressionism and mise en scene. The beginning sequence for example is delirious; a cavalcade of color and movement that I did not expect, complete with batshit performances from Irons and Payne. The DP of this film is Douglas Milsome, a personal favorite; he worked with Kubrick on many films, and the reason I like Milsome is that he puts to use what he learned with Kubrick, specifically camera movement, on the B products he works on. Of course, this only happens when he's working with a less controlling director, like I gather Courtney circa 2000 to be like, though he also produced this picture, so maybe I'm wrong.
   
   The problem with the film are numerous: there is a sense of awkwardness and unimportance from the performances that makes the whole thing a drag. Another film people like to shit on, Batman Forever, has strong performances from everyone, which is one of the reasons I believe it succeeds as a pulpy cartoon. If you have this ridiculous, campy, cartoonish production, like we have here, and the actors are not comfortable in what they are doing, then it's going to hurt the film.
   
   Another reason is montage. We have these odd long takes of the performances I was complaining about above, and while it sort-of-but-doesn't work stylistically, it certainly doesn't work overall. Not only that but scene progression is very heavy many a times, jumping from important scenes to the next without a sense of pace or rhythm.
   
   A failed attempt at a live action cartoon, but I've seen worse films. 10 years 2 months ago

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