Mythica: The Necromancer

Not going to bother with the story line, there really is not that much to say for it, more or less a D&D session made into a movie, with a sub-par DM as director/movie maker.

Production value makes the standard Scy-Fy Channels stuff look stellar by comparison. Effects are as cheesy as it gets. Dialogue is laughable at best.

The actors may as well be D&D players doing this movie for free. It's that bad.

And just to underscore how bad this is, some troll decided to bot the crap out of the ratings, spamming it with 10 star ratings.

I enjoyed watching Mythica: The Necromancer. It escalates the conflict between the forces of good and evil nicely, and it develops the relationships between the characters quite well too. I thought the story was interesting and I did like the new evil character the team has to work with for most of the film. Szorlok finally makes an appearance too.

The negatives are not very many. There were a few story elements that seemed to be taken from The Empire Strikes Back. It hadn't occurred to me before but the comparison seems obvious now. Gojun is Obi-Wan. Marek is Luke, etc. Although I'm taken with Mythica, it's not in the same league as Star Wars. I always seem to find something I'm not entirely happy with in scenes involving Gojun and Marek, the same was true in this one too. The theme song didn't work for me this time either. It's great when they are singing it in Hammerheads near the start of the film but the version at the end feels very flat. It needs to be much more upbeat!

The failings of this film are in production and special effects. With some better editing and budget, it could have scored even higher for me because the story is a good one and the actors do their damnedest. That's what matters most. The bug man ( you'll know him when you see him) was particularly convincing. The final battle was very well written. The excitement was anime level, a genre in which everything is controllable. The story does not make sense without the previous installments and I am purposefully omitting that shortcoming in my rating. I am assuming you've seen the previous films and are up to date on the story. If so, you're in for some fun!

The movie starts pretty weakly, with the choice between killing two people and grabbing a rope versus going on a dangerous quest most certain to be followed by deceit, but I went with it.

There is a new bug controlling character who was pretty interesting, but not nearly explored enough. A smuggler appears later in the film who was also fun, but then he died just when he was becoming interesting and then there are the legions of faceless people dying while all the main characters claim they are righteous and not murderers.

Well, it was fun, although a bit clunky with the story. It made Merrick finally decide her path and didn't squirm from hurting the main characters. All in all, I liked it, but I expect more. They can do better, as they have proved in the past.

When I picked up this DVD for £3 at my local supermarket, I knew I was in for a classic tale of mediocrity, sub par effects, and budget filmmaking.

I was not disappointed.

Acting: I've never seen death and hardship be portrayed in such a dead-pan and wooden manner. Thane's character was under-utilised as his screen presence was quite strong. The bad guys did a good job, but sometimes their writing wasn't believable - for example one of them seemed to be a really bad guy at times, but seemed to develop a kind of stockholm syndrome with the good guys, and this betrayed not only his character but the sense of antagonism and tension within the main 'party' of characters.

Story: A good overall storyline, actually very well paced. Ultimately, the fact that I watched the film in windowed mode while playing Guild Wars 2 speaks volumes about my interest in the on screen action. The introduction was very disappointing as nothing much really happened.

Visual effects: Obviously this is not a huge budget blockbuster, and so the effects are going to reflect this. Still, there was some skilled camera-work which helped mask some of the rougher edges.

Music and Sound: Unfortunately one of the weaker points of the movie. Some of the synthesised effects were very out of place for this genre of film. Also, for the first half there is this unusual helicopter synth sound that is pretty intrusive and goes on for several minutes. I don't know how this sound effect is at all related to progressing the narrative or reflecting the on screen action, it only served as an annoyance.

Conclusion: Why not? Just don't pay top dollar for it.

Also, that one 10 star review on here is obviously fake, right? I mean it has to be fake.