MOVIE REVIEW: Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness (2012)
I had no idea this was in the works, so I was pleasantly surprised when SyFy decided to premiere the movie on its channel. It cased a buzz in my gaming circle, and I also wanted to watch it as well. I eventually got to watch it, and it was worth my time, unlike some D&D movies. The best part of this surprise was the subject matter of the movie: the Book of Vile Darkness.
To be fair, the movie is not about the singular artifact called the book of vile darkness — a tome suffused with so much evil from its human-skin book cover to the foul contents penned in blood that it makes whomever reads it turn evil — but about the quest to stop it from being recreated by a dark cult bent on having darkness rule the lands once again. This monumental task is taken up by one paladin of Pelor named Grayson Azrael (Jack Derges).
When his paladin order, the Knights of the New Sun, is nearly wiped out save for himself and his captured father, Grayson must go undercover and join a group of evil adventurers:
- Akordia (Eleanor Gecks), a female shadar-kai witch
- Vimak (Habib Nasib Nader), a male goliath barbarian
- Seith (Lex Daniel), a male human assassin
- Bezz (Barry Aird), a male human vermin lord
Sir Grayson braves the depths of depravity while holding up his morality, sleeping with an evil spellcaster (that means Akordia; he’s doesn’t go boning dudes to save the world), even slaying a red dragon in the process to get closer to the…I’m not sure if I can really say this…”mind flayer” Shathrax. This strange creature is responsible for trying to recreate the book AND for capturing Grayson’s father. Grayson will travel very far to reach his goal, from his home kingdom all the way to the Elemental Plane of Air — or was it the Plane of Shadow? I couldn’t be sure, but wherever they were there wasn’t a lot of ground to work with. At the end of it all, this movie was a lot better than its predecessors despite being based on the rules for the 4th edition D&D. I was riveted to my seat for a great deal of the movie, mainly because of the attention to detail about the technical game stuff.
They got most of the races and monsters right — the fire archon, red dragon, and especially the slaymate (an undead creature from the D&D 3.5 book Libris Mortis). I almost crawled over the back of my chair when I saw it in action. The mind flayer was no mind flayer at all, but some guy with his mouth sewn shut. The magic items used were pretty on the nose, like the javelin of lightning, and the collars of obedience combined with the belt of the emperor that Shathrax wore. Vorpal blades, necklace of fireballs, bag of holding; you name it, it was in there. The film even had a fun time with the spells, namely invisibility. And I was amazed.
It can be said that anything worth doing takes time, practice, and a whole lot of stress. In the case of Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness, the 7 years between live-action projects was worth it. I recommend this movie, not because it’s all that good but because someone had the balls to make another one even after the first two films were critically panned in the theaters and the direct-to-video market. I hope someone is as care-free to produce and direct the next D&D film, because I will watch it. And I hope you will too.
UPDATE (2022.08.10): Written by Robot Chicken alum Chris McKay and screenwriter Jonathan Goldstein (Spider-Man: Homecoming), we have Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, a Paramount Pictures theatrical release slated for 2023. It’s a comedy/fantasy/adventure story, in the vein of 2011’s Your Highness, 2009’s “Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire”, or even 2018’s “Disenchantment”. The trailer dropped July 21, 2022 using a variation of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” to appeal to the rocker in every D&D player from the 1970s…and D&D fans are already picking it apart due to inaccuracies related to gameplay. Damn, I hate fandoms.
Originally published at http://gedren56.blogspot.com.
