Well, I finally watched this movie yesterday, with 0 expectations and I actually enjoyed it. I’m surprised to learn it jas >90% score on Rotten Tomatoes as I wouldn’t rate it that high, but I found it very compelling; I was actually looking forward to how they would come out of those bad situations this time. Characters were strangely well developed with backstory that didn’t make my eyes roll. Sure, not original, but well told. I was expecting a Netflix movie type (dull and somewhat boring) and ended up with a good pic. Hoping for a sequel.
I LOVED this movie. It was so much better than i ever expected it to be. I might just rewatch it again this week.
Sequel would be awesome. I once saw someone suggest the sequel should be same actors but playing different characters as a new campaign and I really really hope they do that (though unlikely)
Unfortunately a sequel seems unlikely. The film wasn’t a box office success, despite being a better film than most other movies released that year.
Oh no :(
I know. Frownie face indeed. I paid to see it at the theater opening weekend, and I was very pleased with what I saw. Even my wife who doesn’t enjoy D&D enjoyed the movie. She does enjoy fantasy though, but don’t most people?
They’ll never do that. What D&D needs for “maximum monetisation” is “franchise” and “strong character IP”. They need these characters to sell you more stuff.
Oh I know. Woul be awesome though
Whatever it takes to get more Sophia Lillis on the screen
100% on rotten tomato doesn’t mean a movie is 10/10. Just that people would recommend it. And it definitely is a very solid movie. I also like the fact that there’s a friendship between a man and a woman without any romantic tension, very rare to see.
Yes, that’s actually pretty rare in Hollywood: an actual friendship between a man and a woman, without having to jump the other.
Rotten tomatoes isn’t a direct quality rating, it is a percentage of reviewers who rated it favorably overall. So if everyone gave it a 7/10 it would be 100% on RT. I personally find that to be more accurate than trying to average exact rankings, especially since they have separate critic and audience ratings which helps when critics tend to dislike certain movies.
D&D: HAT was just a fun time, which is why most people that saw it rated it favorably. A big part was not being ashamed of the source material, which is what tended to drag down superhero movies prior to the MCU taking off.
I like this one as well. Part of the reason I think this movie just works is because it doesn’t even try to be a gritty realistic action thriller adventure movie, but rather it instead combines larger-than-life, over the top action with a healthy dose of wise cracking, levity, and failures…just like an actual RPG session. It’s fun to watch but not mentally and emotionally exhausting like, say…a war movie.
I think another key aspect is it didn’t try and make the source material the joke. Too often these kinds of movies wouldn’t understand the source material and would try and poke fun at it instead. Like a wink to all the “normies” watching for cheap laughs in place of actual comedic writing.
They did poke fun at lots of D&D stuff (I guess more at how people play D&D), but for the benefit of the players who understood the references. They didn’t go so deep as to lose the non-players interests though. A great balancing act. The subtle breaking of the fourth wall without actually going all the way was excellent.
Exactly. D&D nerds were in on the joke rather than being the butt of it, while it was still accessible enough for normies.
You can click on the tomatometer and get the average score from the critics they index.
The “Top Critics” are averaging 7/10 for DnD:HAT
Still impressive!
FWIW the RT scores are a percentage of reviewers that were generally positive vs negative reviews. 90% could be a pretty good movie because nearly everyone enjoyed it. That doesn’t mean it was the greatest movie they had ever seen. An objectively great movie might have more detractors for some reason and end up with a lower percentage, even if most people agree it was a better movie.
That said, DnD was pretty great.
I was surprised by how much I liked it as well. I ended up watching it on 3 occasions with a few of members of my D&D group at a time. All the little mechanics they managed to incorporate into the action is great and it really captures the tone of a D&D adventure well.
Excellent movie. A great one to sail the seas to find. Hasbro can still eat it for that horse hockey they tried pulling with the OGL. I haven’t forgotten; I won’t forget.
Such a shame, because Hasbro’s OGL tomfoolery happened right before the movie came out, and I think a lot of people skipped the movie (or at least weren’t as enthused about it) because of that.
This is one that I paid to see in the theater, and paid to own, because I’d like to see another one made.
If only Jarnathan had something to say about this…
We should probably wait for him…
One of the best original fantasy movies we’ve had in a long time. (Original as in it’s not a sequel or reboot.) It really pisses me off that we’ll probably not get a sequel.
In an attempt to mimic D&D more closely, all follow up movies will be cancelled due to scheduling conflicts.
It’s a great movie! Now watch it again and remember it’s D&D. Soooo much of the movie plays out like a campaign. For example, the battle sequences at the end play out over 6 second intervals. You can see where a concentration roll was missed and the statue freezes. You can see when they miss their important rolls and fuck up their plans. The scene in the graveyard when they’re asking questions, the risen dead start out with heavy in-character accents, but they’re just talking in a regular modern voice by the end, just like a DM would probably do in a home game. There are so many amazing Easter eggs throughout the entire movie. You can tell that it was created by people who actually know and love D&D.
Edit: fun fact. The scene where Zenk leaves the party and Chris Pine is talking about him walking straight over the rock was completely ad-libbed. But it was so perfect, they left it in.
Speaking of Zenk, he’s clearly a DMPC that was introduced because the DM was annoyed by the players derailing the plot.
I hadn’t realized these things! That’s pretty cool.
Another Easter egg is that you can see the party from the original D&D cartoon that was popular in the 1980’s in the background when they’re in the labyrinth.
As a DM I can totally imagine having to pull stuff out of my ass when they rode the cube down to the under belly of the area lol
I’m glad people are still discovering this movie. It has the potential to be a cult classic imo. No, it’s nothing groundbreaking, but it’s a fun time, and breezy enough that it will probably enter my repertoire of feel-good movies I can just throw on the background to feel better, along with movies like The Princess Bride or Stardust.
I liked it as well. The opening is great. It subverts expectations in the same way a lot of D&D campaigns do. Missing judge will be a co-conspirator, maybe in disguise? Nope, just a bird.
“But we’ve already approved your pardon!”
10/10, no notes.
It was just a really fun movie. I can’t really think of anything it did particularly poorly.
Would love a sequel as well!
