Dungeons & Dragons (2000)

I've been busy with work and classes so expect future posts to be brief. I'll still try to get a couple posts up each month but I won't get back on track until the summer.

Dungeons & Dragons (2000)
I've never played the board game Dungeons & Dragons and this movie doesn't want to make me try it any time soon. Of course to be fair I'm sure this movie is nothing like the game.
Dungeons & Dragons features one dungeon scene and little screen time for the dragons so it doesn't really live up the its title. I came into the movie expecting a generic sub-par PG-13 fantasy movie and it was still disappointing.
Thora Birch is dressed up as a cross between the child-like Empress from The Neverending Story and Queen Amidala from Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace. Despite being an empress, Birch's character doesn't have a lot to do and isn't in the movie much despite being one of the bigger names in the cast. Oscar winner Jeremy Irons plays the main villain, Profion, but like Birch has less screen time than expected. The scenes with Irons as funny because he hams it up, a welcome respite how unentertaining the rest of the movie is. Profion has an evil henchman named Damodar (played by Bruce Payne) who is just as over the top as Irons. I won't even get into the lead actors (which include Marlon Wayans) as I just found them boring, like much of the movie.
Dungeons & Dragons feels like a TV movie despite having a $45 million budget. I'm surprised this poor film got released in theaters but not surprised at all that it was a box office bomb. Director Courtney Solomon managed to survive this disaster as he later directed An American Haunting (2005) and has a film coming out this year titled Getaway starring Ethan Hawke and Selena Gomez. I wouldn't be shocked if we saw a future movie with the Dungeons & Dragons title to cash-in on the board game, especially since increased popularity of fantasy films (The Lord of The Rings, Harry Potter) and TV shows (Game of Thrones) in the last decade. Hey, it couldn't be much worse than this one!
2/10

The Killing of Satan (1983)

The Killing of Satan (1983)
There are some bad movies that need to be seen to be believed. As one would expect from such a ridiculous title, The Killing of Satan is a perfect fit for this category. The Killing of Satan is a Filipino horror/fantasy exploitation movie about Christianity and the dangers of the devil. Despite the obvious religious themes this movie features plenty of violence, nude women, and snakes (which I hope were rubber) being slapped then tied into knots. One of the most memorable scenes involves a guy running in front of a boulder for some reason then getting crushed by it. Our main character is named Lando but he is nothing like Lando Calrissian as he uses Catholic magic to fight demons and eventually Satan himself in a silly final battle! Despite the poor filmmaking, bizarre moments (which can be seen on YouTube), and obvious heavy handedness, The Killing of Satan is certainly memorable and not as boring as I was expecting for strange z-grade cinema. Bad movie aficionados like myself will have some fun with the material and add The Killing of Satan to their list of conquered films while average movie goers simply won't believe this really exists.
2/10