Mythica: o Darkspore

Keep the costume designer and the photographer, fire all others, including the director.

Poor - no, I take it back - awful script and dialogues and terrible, terrible directing. There is no real coherence from one scene to the next, no one takes advantage of the actors' strong points, long scenes to fill the time in order to give an excuse for a movie.

This could have been so much more.

CG were not needed really; we could have used our imagination, with a bit of air acting, and use the money to hire a better director.

And the story - oh, the story - what a mess... It really peaks in the end where, disposing of the whole of the point, the heroes mess up their mission, utterly fail, leaving the world to its doom and walk away all smiles in search for another adventure and... warmer climates.

Really, now, whoever gave high marks to this film must either be a close friend of someone in the cast or crew or an utter nutter about anything sword-yielding, magic-casting or horse-riding.

And... "Hercules" must have been stoned up to his eyeballs.

RELEASED IN 2015 and directed by Anne K. Black, "Mythica: The Darkspore" is the second film in the five-film fantasy/adventure series about a limping servant girl with blossoming magical powers named Merek (Melanie Stone), who teams-up with a heroic warrior, Thane (Adam Johnson), a miscreant lothario, Dagen (Jake Stormoen), a priestess, Teela (Nicola Posener), and a hunky elf, Qole (Rocky Myers), for a journey to obtain all the shards of the Darkspore to keep it from the diabolical Szorlok (Matthew Mercer). Kevin Sorbo has a cameo.

The story takes place in an adventurous Medieval-like world where sorcery, elves, orcs, dragons and other fantasy creatures are real. If you like The Lord of the Rings, D&D, Warcraft, Conan or Sinbad you'll probably like the Mythica franchise. These movies were partly funded by a Kickstarter campaign with all the movies costing less than $100,000, except the fifth and final one. The first movie, "A Quest for Heroes," cost $94,294 while this sequel cost $81,099. The production quality is incredible for such meager budgets, particularly if you're familiar with micro-budget productions. The Mythica films are basically just as good production-wise as "Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God" (2005), a TV movie that cost a whopping $15 million (for a TV flick, that is).

"The Darkspore" is disappointing in comparison to the dynamic first film, in particular the first half where the transition from "A Quest for Heroes" is clumsy and unexciting. Thankfully, things perk up in the second half and make up for the weak first act, especially a fight with a dragon in the desert. In any case, be sure to see "A Quest for Heroes" before viewing this one.

THE MOVIE RUNS 1 hour 47 minutes. WRITERS: Anne K. Black, Jason Faller and Kynan Griffin.

GRADE: B-

Mythica series is a niche for fantasy fans, it doesn't boast high budget production, but decent enough for a B-movie viewing. The Darkspore has a couple of nice designs and occasional humor, yet the narrative doesn't produce that great of an adventure. It does feel as though we're seeing some sub quest from a game or mediocre side episode of less-than-epic tale.

It revolves around a party of mage, necromancer to be specific, and warriors to ensure the enemy force doesn't possess the illusive Darkspore. Unfortunately, there's barely any draw to the premise, it spends almost one hour to set-up the plot yet the momentum doesn't take off and it just ends up floating in a flat line the entire time. A few gimmicky plot devices that are introduced won't appeal to many since they tend to be vague.

Actors do their best on the material they have, the costumes are nice as well. In some scenes, there is decent humor to be had, mainly in the expense of the joker character. Aside from that, the personalities feel bland. They don't engage the audience, merely rehearsing stereotypical fight the evil theme. It could've capitalized on the stereotypical premise to bring humor or present more twists, but the movie keeps it too safe.

Effects are passable at best, there are a few instances that really break the immersion. For example, the encounter with mythical entity that just looks dreadful. Considering the budget, it does fairly well for half the runtime, although when these flaws appear they are noticeably jarring.

I'm inclined to give it higher score since it has the feel of fantasy adventure when it shines for a brief moment, but the lackluster characterization and effects make the movie into an ordinary fetch quest, hardly a captivating tale.

I hadn't seen the first one, before I watched this, so I might have missed a couple of jokes or references to the first movie, but overall it worked even without the knowledge of it. It's not an acting masterpiece or a masterpiece in general, but it does what a low budget fantasy movie is supposed to do.

Some of the effects are really bad, but you can deal with it, if you want to. The stunts are decent enough for the size and budget this movie probably had and if you like what you saw here (and maybe the previous one), you will be happy to hear, there is another one coming in 2016 to conclude the trilogy ...

The party continues on their quest, this time helped by a dark elf with mysterious markings, while a warlock is trying to beat them to their goal. Unfortunately, it seemed like the makers made a lot less effort for this film, especially in the areas of character interaction and storyline. That's unfortunate, especially since I loved A Quest for Heroes.

Some commentators focused on the quality of the special effects. I don't care about those, but this is an indicator that those people didn't feel the characters were important or the story inspiring, and that is on the script writer. If the story is great and the characterization well done, no one looks twice on the special effects. I think that, while I still enjoyed the film, more effort should be made to make the viewers feel with the characters in a story that one could believe in.

Bottom line: fun film, really inconsistent characters, jumping from love to hate on a whim, and a disappointing and rushed ending that made little sense. I hope the next part will be more engaging.