Realms of disenchantment

>> Dungeons & Dragons casts a sleep spell on the audience

by MATTHEW HAYS

Back in its day, the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game offered fidgety 12 year olds the chance to create their own magical realms of fantasy and enchantment, where the line between magnificent wealth and horrible death was decided by the roll of those funny 20-sided dice.

It seems somehow appropriate, then, that the script for Dungeons & Dragons, the way-belated cinematic offshoot of the quarter-century-old game, should seem to have been written by a 12 year old.

It's more than just painfully bad dialogue, seemingly pasted together Burroughs-style from a stack of miserable fantasy paperbacks. What we have here is a scenario so excruciatingly uninspired that every twist and development can be seen coming a mile away. Moreover, elements galore are shamelessly pilfered from Star Wars. Fantasy and imagination were clearly not in the incantation for this little magic trick.

See, Princess Amidala--sorry, Empress Savina--wants to apply some sort of enchanted socialism across her realm. Wizards and common folk should have equal rights, she argues. Now, Darth Vader, or rather Profion the Magic Fascist, wants all the power for himself. He needs the magic wand that controls red dragons to challenge Savina and her gold-dragon-controlling stick. So Darth Maul--that is, number-one henchman Damodar--is dispatched to get it. Only thing is, Luke, Chewie, Leia and the robots are already on the case.

Okay, so maybe a pedestrian script was to be expected. This still leaves room for funny jokes (there are jokes, but none of them funny), impressive swordfights (impressive they're not) or at least some halfway-decent acting. Sorry, no dice.

The usually brilliant Jeremy Irons, as Profion, chews up the scenery like it was cotton candy. Every line out of his mouth is nails on a blackboard. Marlan Wayans, who got chuckles in Scary Movie, simply irritates as the thief Snails, while his pal Ridley, played by Lois & Clark's Justin Whalin, seems teleported out of some excreable '80s teen flick. Snails, being black, is predictably killed off pretty fast.

American Beauty's Thora Birch is a nuisance as the Empress, and Bruce Payne, in the Damodar role, drags out the cheesy menace as though stalling, making time for the CGI guys to finish digi-mating their dragons. And what's with his blue lipstick?!

Hope comes in the form of Richard O'Brien, the fellow who wrote Rocky Horror Picture Show (he also played Riff-Raff), as Nilus the thief lord. Even he can't bring a spark of life to a film blighted by some weird spell of lameness.

Briefly entertaining is the sudden climax, presenting a sky full of dogfighting dragons. Two minutes of swooping and fireballs hardly makes up for an hour and a half of groan-inducing mediocrity, though. In short, I cannot stress the importance of avoiding this piece of shit. Stay home and rent Labyrinth, Dragonslayer, Excalibur, Legend, whatever. Better yet, round up some local 12 year olds, dust off the 20-sided die and start a game. No matter how shitty it turns out, it's better than this movie.

Dungeons & Dragons opens Friday, Dec. 8