Welcome back, my fellow creatives!

This being summer and all, I thought it’d be fun to do an activity unique to the season: camping. When I was a kid, camping meant living in a magical woods, going on endless adventures among the fireflies beneath the stars. It was campfires and song, lake swims and long hikes through an endless forest. On this blog, though, we’re taking a different road with camp.

campy

adjective

ˈkam-pē 

campier; campiest

: in the style of camp : absurdly exaggerated, artificial, or affected in a usually humorous way

Or, we can use this definition by my daughter Blondie:

“It’s so campy, you could roast marshmallows on it.” -Blondie

Last month, we went camping in the land of science fiction with Flash Gordon. Originally I thought to do a bit of horror this month, but we’ll save that for August, which is fitting for my children crying out in terror over the upcoming school year. Today, let us sit a spell in the realm of fantasy, shall we? So long as the dragons—or winged T-Rexes, as Blondie called them—don’t stomp on us.

Now for the record, my kids LOVE the 2023 film Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. If you’re a fantasy fan, I highly recommend it. It’s got some humor, some fun fight sequences, and some excellent special effects for magic and creature alike.

But we’re not talking about that film. We’re talking about the 2000 version New Line Cinema put out a year before Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Rings. We’re talking about…

Dungeons and Dragons

I’m still dumbfounded the same studio put out both films. Get ready, folks, because this is a buggy one.

Growing up in the 80s, special effects in fantasy films often took the shape of stop-motion animation by the likes of Ray Harryhausen. CG already had strong potential in the 90s as seen in films like Jurassic Park or Star Wars: Episode I -The Phantom Menace, but effects like that needed a serious budget. By the looks of the effects in this film, that budget wasn’t there. While Flash Gordon’s miniatures and practical effects had a cheesy charm to them, the sets in this film feel like a bizarre mash-up of screensaver castle towers and castles typically on the tourist trail.

According to Wikipedia, the film was actually shot in Prague, and I wish we could have felt a touch more reality when the real magic of a place was available. They did try, for the record, to create some unique set pieces, such as the maze containing the mysterious Dragon’s Eye. And at least they had Dr. Who play an elf for a bit.

Also, I will say (with Blondie’s agreement) that the score is a happy surprise–and frankly, too good for this film. Justin Burnett worked with Hanz Zimmer in the 90s, so he had quite the mentor when it came to epic film scores.

Perhaps the biggest sin of Dungeons and Dragons is that it looks about as 90s as a film can: from the costumes to the haircuts to the makeup to the effects. The style of comedy, the style of romance and just the overall acting and dialogue—it all fits a fantasy version of a teen drama from the 90s. I’m guessing that was the audience the production hoped to capture, but this wasn’t the film to do it.

Uffdah.

WHAT’S A WRITER TO GET OUT OF THIS CAMPING TRIP?

Don’t overdo the comic relief. The sidekick character Snails played by comedian Marlon Wayans grated on the nerves of the whole household. It’s a shame, because he can be a brilliant comic. In this film, though, his character constantly whines and screeches for help from his best friend, the hero played by Justin Whalin, who looks like he’s 12. There’s nothing wrong with a comic relief in any given story, and that includes an epic, high-fantasy adventure. But all good things come in moderation, and Wayans’ character is so high-pitched and over-the-top that my kids weren’t sad when his character dies. If anything, they were mad when he was resurrected in the last minute of the film.

Don’t overdo the villainy. Jeremy Irons is a powerhouse of an actor. I love watching him in movies as both a villain and a hero. You could narrow in on just his eyes, and his eyes could communicate more than most people do with their whole bodies. But what was this?!?! “Cartoonish” doesn’t even feel strong enough. The constant gravelly voice, the constant sweeping gestures, the constant snarl, the constant EVERYTHING. A performance like this would make sense for a children’s theater stage show, and maybe that’s how Irons saw this. So many stories are loved by fans for their villains as much as for their heroes, so a memorable villain is perfectly fine. But if your villain only chews scenery, then your audience isn’t going to take him seriously as a threat.

Don’t underdo the magic. Blondie and I couldn’t get over how the mage sidekick to our hero practically never did any magic. In fact, for such a magical world, we don’t see much magic happening at all. There’s the opening sequence of Irons trying to create a magical staff, and the scene where Mage Chick captures the protagonist and friend, but then she apparently forgets how magic works until there has to be a way for her and the hero to escape after Wayans’ character is killed. Then she doesn’t do any more magic. Huh? One of the loudest conflicts told to us by characters is that mages have all the power. Yet we really don’t see that happening for the majority of the film. Sure, this could just be budget constraints, but little things matter. Renaissance costumes and castles aren’t enough to establish a magical realm, nor is a CG overload of blurred dragons flying at each other. Little touches of magic would at least reinforce what kind of world we live in during the long middle of a story.

And perhaps the other sin here is that I wanted to have fun with this one. I wanted to have that same wackadoodle joy I had with Flash Gordon and other campy films and shows I’ve watched through the years. But after watching this with my kids, I’m just, well, bummed that magic is not alive with this film.

Some camping trips are rained out. This is one of them.

We’ll take another trip next month, and I think that trip will be a touch more fun…and scary! In the meantime, I’ve got another interview and podcast coming up, plus a resource spotlight for character building.

Read on, share on, and write on, my friends!