Has anyone actually watched this?

[The Glyphstone]

They move Liechtenstein down south for the winter.

Well, it's small enough that I guess they can carry it. Or maybe the Leichtensteiners all just divvy it up between them in their luggage, fly to Australia, and reassemble it there.

[Ravens_cry]

Well, it's small enough that I guess they can carry it. Or maybe the Leichtensteiners all just divvy it up between them in their luggage, fly to Australia, and reassemble it there.

So, all two of them?

[An Enemy Spy]

So, all two of them?

Well they're pretty rich. They can hire the population of Andorra. It's not like he has anything else to do.

[Logic]

The trailer looks more than just godawful, it looks like a tragically bad waste of film.

I say this, and hope to be wrong: There will never be a commercially successful Dungeons and Dragons movie, let alone a good one.

[Hopeless]

I've seen it, and I thought it was pretty decent. I don't regret watching it.

Do you mean Dungeons & Dragons the Book of Vile Darkness or one of the previous movies?

[Iku Rex]

Do you mean Dungeons & Dragons the Book of Vile Darkness or one of the previous movies?

Book Of Vile Darkness.

[Hopeless]

Book Of Vile Darkness.

Ok its for sale over here in the Uk for slightly more than what was listed on Amazon UK, this is in Tesco haven't bothered looking for it elsewhere since I'm looking to get a new pair of glasses which is of somewhat greater importance than a dvd which seems to be so bad even the Scy Fi channel has refused to air it on their channel

[EccentricCircle]

Right; Dungeons and Dragons 3: the Book of Vile Darkness
A review.

Special Effects: 5/ 10
Plot: 1/ 10
Pacing: 1/10
Characterisation: 3/10
D&D canon: 9/10
Overall 3/10

I wouldn't advise that anyone spend much money on it. In my opinion this film was actually worse than the first one, and that’s not even supposed to be possible! It’s not even bad in a funny way

The basic premise is that a paladin has to go under cover in an evil adventuring party in order to track down the people who wiped out his order and abducted his father. That’s not a bad idea in and of itself, but the way they do it feels very contrived. It’s never quite clear until the end how the evil party’s quest is going to help him do this at all. Throw in far too much gore and gratuitous sex and violence and you get a movie that’s frankly cringe worthy. The characters are one dimensional, and badly acted, the plot is incoherent at best and absent at worst. They've taken as many of the gross and unpleasant aspects of the game as they could find (many straight from the Book of Vile Darkness; Itself a sourcebook that you kind of need brain bleach after reading) and cobbled them together into an attempt at a story. I'm not saying that games like that aren't played all the time with bad DMs. I'm sure they are. But it’s not really entertaining to watch and I think it’s a very bad advertisement for the game as a whole. If the expression of D&D you can buy in Tesco is a rubbish movie then that’s not going to encourage people to give the game a try, and it will definitely give an unrepresentative image of the tastes and interests of people like us who do like the game.
In the past our gaming group has adapted both the 1st and 2nd D&D movies into games, in an attempt to see if we can do a better job of the quest than the heroes and have a good laugh at the ridiculousness of the plot. In this case the lack of a heroic adventuring party makes that nearly impossible. The villainous party are too tied into the evil that’s going on to be portrayed by player characters, so even an “evil game” is largely out. The film has one hero and so is unsuited to what is ultimately a collaborative game.
On the up side the first movie in the series was often criticised for not really being recognisably a D&D world. The makers of this film had clearly tried to not fall into the same trap. I would guess that they’ve read the 4th edition Players handbooks and possibly one or two others. And a lot of the material is drawn from the Book of Vile Darkness. (the film is credited as “based on the book by Monte Cook and Robert J. Schwalb” which is odd as Cook wrote the 3rd edition book and Schwalb wrote the 4th ed one. but neither seems to have been involved in both.) The main character visits a shop called the Adventurer’s Vault. Pelor is worshiped by his order of paladins and the party includes a Shadar Kai Warlock and a Golliath barbarian.
They clearly know how all of these elements are meant to fit into the game world. And the action sequences kind of look like 4th ed combat with characters using powers and manoeuvres. However I feel that the lack of an engaging story, good acting or interesting characters is something which no amount of truth to the source material can correct. (I’ll admit that it doesn’t help that they went with a lot of the gross and unpleasant source material which doesn’t usually get used in my games.)
The D&D game is a set of rules designed to help people tell entertaining stories. Almost any experienced DM can and regularly does do a better job. And there are literally hundreds of D&D stories out there that they could have adapted, whether from Books, Comics, Computer games or Adventure Modules. In other words the DM's guide would have told them how to write an entertaining D&D story. They had no excuse.

[Riverdance]

Initial Thoughts: "There's a DnD Movie?"

The only good D&D movie is Gamers 2: Dorkness Rising.

Seconded. You may notice that the DnD 3 Trailer appears to shamelessly rip off the opening sequence of Dorkness Rising with all the flames in darkness during the credits.

[JoshL]

Just watched it. I enjoyed it. Not a good movie by a long stretch, but as a fantasy film junkie, I can see myself watching it again. On par with the 2nd, for what that's worth. I did like the evil adventure party perspective, though some of the characters definitely fell prey to Evil at the cost of character development and common sense.

Still, magic, swordplay, monsters, dragons, pretty much all that I was looking for in a movie like this. I liked it, will watch it again (maybe even back to back with number 2)...but it's not a good movie by any standard.