I am a fanboy of fantasy movies, worship Lord of the Rings. I also really enjoyed the first 5 movies. I was willing to go easy on this movie and forgive a lot. But. The first five had what this movie is missing.
I would say this is more of a play than a movie. Something very talented high schoolers would produce. And if you have not seen the first five, forget this one. Will make no sense.
Has to be said that every actor gave it his all. It was a passion project, and it shows. The character named Stranger gave me Aragorn vibes for the first half of the flick. But that was not enough to make up for the shortcomings.
The majority of the movie takes place inside the inn, in one room. A la 12 angry men style. I am pretty sure the low kickstarter budget of $200,000 had a lot to do with that. After a while the repeated placement shot of the outside of the inn followed by more time in the inn started getting stale. I had forgotten the previous movies were kickstarters and kept wondering why the set never changed. This gave the movie a "play" feel. I never had that feeling in the first five movies.
The magical special effects were also pretty poor. And there was a lot less of them than in previous movies. They did little to sell the story or movie.
But the unforgivable sin is the story. It is derivative and forgettable. There is very little character development. The villain at the end is so underdeveloped me and the wife did not care if he lived or died. We were indifferent. The previous movies were much better written and were properly paced with rich story telling. We cared about the characters. We were invested. This movie would barely make it as a tv episode. The movie ended and we were shocked at the underwhelming ending and poor general script.
Maybe they had a lot less money for this one? I don't know. They setup a part 7. Story continues. But if they cannot recapture the magic of the first 5, it won't be worth making.
