Movie Review: Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight
Published January 06, 2008
I started playing Dungeons & Dragons when I was in college. I found the game by accident while shopping through a hobby store, became intrigued, and picked it up. Another year and a half passed before I found a couple of guys in college to play it with. Then Larry, Mike, and I would spend Friday nights and Saturdays knocking down doors in lost castles and abandoned dungeons everywhere we found them.
Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman put the fiction side of Dungeon & Dragons' world of Dragonlance on the bestseller map in 1984 with the publication of Dragons of Autumn Twilight. Legend has it the novels actually sprang from a game played by the authors.
The DVD Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight is a straight-to-DVD release that is the first of hopefully more adventures to come. Like the novel of the same name, the DVD adventure concerns itself with a group of adventurers who are out to prove that the gods haven't left the world entirely and do still care about the elves, dwarves, humans, kender, and others that live in it.
Tanis the Half-Elf (voiced by Smallville's Michael Rosenbaum) is the group's leader, and he's on his way back to Solace, the village he called home five years ago. Along the way, he meets up with his old friends Flint Fireforge (Fred Tatasciore) and Tasselhoff Burrfoot (Jason Marsden).
I watched the movie with my ten-year-old and he immediately caught onto the characters and the long friendship that existed between them. The repartee is clever and simple, and pulled my son and I right into the movie. Just a few minutes into the film, the screen was suddenly alive with sword fighting as a group of goblins tried to beat up our heroes. I have to admit, this kind of action was welcome - and it was bloodless for the sword slinging that was going on.
Given that the film only has an hour and a half to tell the nearly 400-page book's story, the pacing is headlong. The characters are all set up in Solace as Raistlin (24's Keifer Sutherland, who must be some kind of D&D fan to do a direct-to-DVD film), Caramon (Rino Romano of Fox Network's The Batman), and Strum Brightblade (Marc Worden) are all introduced in short order. The friendship is apparent, as well as the various tensions that were created in the Dragonlance series. Strum doesn't trust Raistlin; Caramon is simple-minded and protective of Raistlin; Raistlin is selfish and somewhat power-hungry; Tasselhoff is a kleptomaniac; Flint is a grouch; and Tanis is torn between his two heritages. The story swings swiftly into high gear.
- Movie Review: Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight
- Published: January 06, 2008
- Type: Review
- Section: Video
- Filed Under: Video: Animation, Video: Adventure, Video: Action, Review, Video: Fantasy
- Writer: Mel Odom
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Comments on this articleComments
What is wrong with you? Did Wizards of the Coast pay you to write this "review" Did you actually watch the movie? It was horrible. No... it was beyond horrible. After watching it I actually felt like a small bit of my soul had died.
Maybe you were expecting too much. I went into the movie knowing 1) it wasn't A-list, 2) it was ONLY and hour and a half and no way could the whole novel be done justice, and 3) it was aimed at kids and the young at heart who just wanted a good time.
And I believe I indicated that this one wasn't for purists. I believe it was directed at people who hadn't really sampled D&D.
I wasn't paid, but I had a lot of fun explaining D&D rules to my son because he's just started playing the game.
And maybe that small bit of your soul didn't die. You should still have a saving throw coming!
Honestly I went into it with a pretty open mind. While I didn't expect A-List, I also didn't expect to be embarrassed by the movie. The length / cut storyline didn't really bother me, that is part of the adaptation process. What bothered me was that the end product was unprofessional. The CG was a joke, it looked like someone took video game monsters and spliced them into the animation. Heck, the DVD menu wasn't even authored with SCENE SELECTIONS. The oldest movies in my DVD collection all have that "feature".
If the movie wasn't for the fans, I am afraid they just drove people AWAY from the franchise.
I'm a long time fan of the game and the books but I must side with Will. (ok, maybe just the latter post) The choice of total amateurs as animators was a poor one. The movie looks like it was done 20 years ago and is just unacceptable these days. The cartoony style choice might be ok but the extremely poor and badly added cgi draconians are jarring.
I hope the fast paced storytelling can hook the audience because visually this film stands out far too much in the wrong direction.
Getting such names for the voices is a great boost though. Americans especially place an inordinate significance on celebrity worship so Sutherland and Lawless alone should bring lots of viewers.
Her names is GOLDMOON not "MOONGOLD".
And for the record if they were not going to do it right they should have not done it all this movie sucks and does not do justice to the novel at all, in fact if anything it only all it accomplishes is to make that much more diffuicult for anyone who really wants to make a film that could do the novels justice that much harder to make. I am truly saddened that Weis and Hickman allowed tghis film to go forward, I would not want my name associated with such an obvious sell out. True DRAGHONLANCE fans will agree .
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I was able to see a free screening of Dragonlance and I thought it was GREAT. If you are a Dragonlance fan then you MUST check this movie out as soon as it arrives!