questl-18592

It's weird how excited I was for this one. I've never played a single D&D campaign, never so much as thrown a D20 but I've always been fascinated by it and the culture around it. Beyond that, this movie just looked like fun. Now, all that said, I'm gonna get the bad out of the way so I can jump to the good.

There's a lot of CGI in this movie. Most of it is pretty good. Some of it is pretty bad. That's a minor thing really, and honestly I'm starting to think that's just a byproduct of post-COVID cinema. CGI just isn't where it used to be. That aside, and a more critical error in the film is that it's just got too much to do. At 134 minutes, they just don't have the time to properly explain or explore the world. There's so much I wanted to know more about, so many things where I was left going "Huh?" Making this kind of movie is a big task. D&D has been around for ages, presumably with countless stories and adventures, inside jokes and fan favorite things. I weirdly wish they had announced this as a trilogy from the jump, but I bet they had to go for the solo pitch to get it approved. Show their worth to the studios and all that. Scenes felt rushed, we'd reach a new destination, one thing would happen, off to the next. It was almost dizzying how fast it moved.

On the plus side... This is just so much FUN. I've never been a huge Pine fan, but this one might be winning me over. He's had charisma in the past, but I've never once had that desire to see him reprise a role again. Rodriguez... God she was PERFECT in this. I really don't think there would be a better person to take up the character and her years of roles that defined her as one of the toughest people in Hollywood really served her in this. The action is fun, the magic and world is really interesting, when the effects are on point it's gorgeous. Oh, and it's hilarious. More than that though, I think it succeeded in accomplishing what every film like this sets out to accomplish. I want more. I want to know more about this world, I want to dig deeper. Like I said, I'd always been interested, but never made a push. Now I'm pestering friends to tell me more. If that's not a sign of some modicum of success, I don't know what is.

D&D:HAT is a prime example of an imperfect film being carried by pure charisma and character and fun. It's just such a great ride that it's pretty easy to overlook what might otherwise be some pretty significant problems. Further, I was lucky enough to watch this under pretty great circumstances. Myself and 3 friends. I'd never played, one just started last year and is still new. Another has been playing for a few years and the 4th has been playing this and other tabletops for over a decade. I really liked it, as did the two newer people. The person playing for years felt it was cluttered and sloppily attempting to hit as many D&D notes as possible. Couldn't ask for a better range of perspectives for an impromptu viewing.

Snooooooooooooooze.

Look, some interesting gadgets, visuals, and Driver trying his damnedest to make this work doesn't change the fact that this is a remarkably unremarkable movie. I'm not sure what's a stronger indictment of the film, that I literally finished it less than 30 minutes before writing this and already can't be bothered to recall any details beyond Adam Driver playing some hybridized Last of Us: Turok Edition. Or, that I kept nearly falling asleep in the middle of a sci fi movie on a planet of killer Dinos!

Beyond that, it's not aggressively bad or anything. It's just dull, tedious, uninspired and hollow. Driver's still fun but he can't save this mess.

I liked this movie and that makes me sad. When John Wick first came out, I was in love. Yes, the action was incredible but there was something more to it. The world and the style were so interesting and there was this odd connection to Wick. Here's this man who has gone through such change in his life, who just wanted to live peacefully, drawn back in to the world he'd escaped. There was just something interesting about that. 2 and 3 continued that trend, to a somewhat lesser extent but they were still really fun. Now we hit 4 and I find myself losing that resonance with the franchise.

4 has some AMAZING action. The action and the set pieces might well be the best of the series but they're all so empty. Each one is just a few degrees separated from greatness and eventually that gets tiresome. Then there's the classic sequel trouble of proliferation and escalation. Something that was cool the first time we saw it, so OBVIOUSLY if we give it to EVERYONE then it's that much cooler, right!? Nooooope. I swear, I could hear the CinemaSins chime every time someone blocked a bullet with an impermeable suit jacket.

4 also has more characters than any of the other movies. Don't ask me to explain who any of them really are, cause I have no idea, but they're there and cut a nice silhouette!