Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God (2005)

final verdict for: "Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God" (2005): a fantasy tale that would be a good representation for what the Pen&Paper game stands for, if it hadn't been for the budget.

Set roughly 100 years after the original "Dungeons and Dragons" (2000), one of the arch enemies returns as an undead striving to live a human life again and seeking revenge by reviving an ancient undead dragon. Only a group of adventurers has it in their hands to go and find a magical item that would be able to prevent certain doom to the realm.

After the abomination that was the original D&D, expectations were quite down, fans of the genre and strangers to it alike found it to be one of the worst fantasy movies ever made and being familiar with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, you can only shake your head over that piece of crap. The second installment however, got the biggest issue of the first one right: a believable fantasy script (believable from a fantasy point of view). The storyline is very linear and follows the typical game scheme and watching the movie you could almost feel the underlying campaign setting.

Another huge pro are the characters and actors that play them. All of them are believable fantasy stereotypes, but instead of going for something unbelievable new, they went with the stereotypes and delivered the typical fantasy characters without any unnecessary extras, which si perfectly fitting for the setting.

The music is really good as well, especially considering the low budget, this movie had to struggle with. Typical fantasy epic orchestra tunes mingle with folkloristic town music, as you aould expect it and are used to from games like "Baldur's Gate".

This movies biggest problem truly was the budget. The script was really good, the cast actors as well and the music is splendid too. But looking at the cinematography and the special effects, the low budget really shows. It really is a shame. Had this movie had the budget of the first one, it could have been a movie that would truly have been a good representation of the game, that fans could have been proud of.

Alas, that was not the case and so this movies suffers from several issues. First of all, it is still set in the same city as the first movie, but to cut CGI costs, the city now looks like an average medieval city and not the magical megalopolis of the first one, which is actually more fitting in my opinion. However, there are several other inconsistency problems like this one and especially towards the end, the movie feels very rushed. Characters, that were developed in detail before are'nt seen until the very end, arms that were cut off reappear and over all one feels they were running out of money and had to quickly finish their work. To truly make all ends meet, the movie would have needed at least 20 more minutes.

Despite all these problems, it was still a very enjoyable movie and true to the source material, which is a huge biggie in the genre. To me this is an injustly underrated movie and I award it 7 out of 10 RP (Rating Points).

Alaska (1996)

final verdict for: "Alaska" (1996): Admittedly a guilty pleasure, but one that does not stand the test of time, unfortunately.

After losing their mother a small family moves to Alaska, because their father wants to start a new life as a commercial delivery aviator there. When he gets lost in a storm and seemingly can not be found, his 2 children set out to find their lost father. Befriending a bear, they do not only find their father, but also their way to surviving in the frontier conditions and ultimately, their maturity.

I have known this movie for a long time and remember loving it when watching it as a kid. When I started a research project about Alaska two years ago, I decided to use this film and gave it a rewatch and was disappointed. Two years have passed and as I am wrapping up the paper, I gave it another try, but it was no good.

There are two good things about this movie. A: The landscape and B: Charlton Heston, basically playing the gun loving guy he probably really was. Those two were also the only believable things in the movie.

Thora Birch, Vincent Kartheiser and Dirk Benedict give it their best, but they stay uncredible. Especially Birch and Kartheiser oftentimes act in a way that only children will buy and you often sense that they are only acting after given directions.

The plot itself is nicely thought, a modern spirit journey if you will, but the premis is so ridiculous, Jack London would be ashamed of it. These two survive so many situations that would be lethal for even the most skilled and gifted survival adventurer that it makes you shake your head, especially considering that the movie wants us to believe these two kids come from the city and have basically no frontier experience.

The music in this movie is okay, they made it to fit the agasping athmosphere, with the beautiful landscapes, but it is over the top. There is only so and so many orchestral scores with choir, you can stand before it gets boring.

The camera work istelf is well done most of the times, except for minor moments where the camera crew is visible in shadow or the zoom lens chosen in a wrong moment. However this good work gets killed by the editing most of the time, which edits shots together that anyone can spot out as not belonging together, be it, because of obvious changes in the background of because of clothing errors in between shots.

It's really sad, seeing, how this movie could have been so much more, but used so little of his potential. The references to native alaskan culture and how they are linked to the lives of these Chicago kids was a really clever idea and the movie even managed to deliver a certain environmental message. Unfortunately though, these good intents are overshadowed by the poor execution, but hey, that's what you get for letting your son direct the movie, Charlton!

A freezing 4 out of 10 for this sad example of "could have been real good!"