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 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.