Review: Book of Vile Darkness D&D Movie

This was the first time I have ever watched a movie on YouTube, not that that's either here nor there, but there it is. I'll break it down into what I really liked and what I didn't care for:


Dislikes:
  • The hero was required to kill someone in cold blood to join the party. Instead, he defended himself from an attack. The evil party accepted that.
  • The dragon was a large, emaciated bat.
  • The fight scene at the town was so bad! It had horrible choreography. And where were the archers?  A few good archers could have taken out the evil group before the fight even started.
  • The end message seems to be that you are more noble if you lie, cheat, steal, and murder to attain your goal than if you are faithful to the tenets of knighthood.  That's not how I play D&D.

Likes:
  • I liked the mage's spells and how they were connected to his body: Wizard eye was able to be effected by a trap and caused him pain when it was disrupted.  Also, his spell allowing him to turn into a swarm: I'd assume those individual creatures could still be hurt and feel pain. That could cause a loss of HP when he reforms.
  • The town's symbol of ruler-ship  the mace with the diamond at the top? I love it! It'd redesign it a bit, but it's a cool idea.
  • The evil mage as sort of a devil-over-the-shoulder to the hero is a neat idea. He never does anything bad to the hero, but he does encourage the hero to be bad. How the hero reacts can make a nice story.
  • The hero poisoned the barbarian, and slid the body into the bag of holding and threw the bad into the lake. I think that's actually kind of clever.
  • The evil mage has the holy symbol on in the last scene. What a slap in the face to the hero who's chained up!

In all, the movie was low-rate with cheesy effects and unbelievable scenes. I won't be satisfied with a D&D movie until one is at least Lord of the Rings quality. Until then, I can still leave the bad and siphon off some of the good for ideas in games.

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