Dungeons And Dragons 3 - The Book Of Vile Darkness

Title: Dungeons And Dragons 3 - The Book Of Vile Darkness (15)

Year: 2012

Running Time: 90 minutes

Director: Gerry Lively

Cast: Anthony Howell (Ranfin), Dominic Mafham (Mayor Of Little Silver Keep), Jack Derges (Grayson)

Notes:  None

Rating: 4

Thoughts:   A band of heroes must defy an Empire, as they battle evil.

A voice over gives us the back story, accompanied by some basic drawings that don't really get me going. And it's a very long intro.

I mean really long.

Seriously, very long.

But that is just to prepare us for a pedestrian, cliched, and hackneyed tale. An interesting idea that Knights sit around with nothing to do isn't explored, but instead they all get wiped out.

Apart from, of course, one that is kidnapped, and his Knightly son. It's off to the whorehouse (her brother was a Knight before he was slain, of course) before we go to the Adventurer's shop where game item names are used.

Then the self-doubting hero joins an evil band on a quest. They are just awful. Clothing and weapons are straight out of high budget LARP and only a CGI dragon has any realism.

The fighting is comedic at best and it's all just so dismal. Look out (if you make it this far) for the celebration by the villagers when they get their people back. Hilarious.

I feel most sorry for the actor playing Bezz, who mixes dark evil with proper humour very well. He's also lucky not to have got some of the bonkers lines passed to Seith.

Occasional good things are lost (such as how a bag of holding gets used) and this is just tired and messy. Taking the perspective of the evil questers should have delivered more.