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.
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.
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)
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.
Whatever it takes to get more Sophia Lillis on the screen
Oh I know. Woul be awesome though
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?
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.
Same - watched it a month or so ago and actually enjoyed it more than I expected. My wife was watching with me, and even though she doesn’t even know what D&D is, she quite liked it too!
We would both definitely watch a sequel, if it’s ever made.
I loved how accessible and entertaining it was, even for people who didn’t catch all of the in-jokes and references.
I think the best easter egg is that they all follow initiative when attacking 😎
My favorite was the party from the cartoon in the arena.
Wait, really?! I didn’t catch that one
Yup, and each sequence is 6 seconds long!
That’s a great way to put it - the movie really is accessible, isn’t it? A lot of Easter eggs for people familiar with D&D, but it’s still quite enjoyable even when you know nothing about it.
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.
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.
If only Jarnathan had something to say about this…
We should probably wait for him…
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
Ooh! Ooh! They reached the max capacity of a gelatinous cube when they pulled that stunt. One more person and it wouldn’t work!
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.
This is one that I paid to see in the theater, and paid to own, because I’d like to see another one made.
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.
I LOVED this movie. It was so much better than i ever expected it to be. I might just rewatch it again this week.
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.
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 saw it in theater with my best friend, who is also my longest standing player im ttrpg games. We went twice
That may not seem signficant without backstory.
I’m disabled, with my primary chronic pain source being my sciatic nerve. So, driving to a theater to see a movie is painful. Every bump hurts, and I live in a rural town. Sitting in the best theater seats good a hour is constant pain to some degree or another.
Doing that twice for the same movie is something I haven’t done since before my back went to hell, before 2005. An hour long drive to the theater, then the hour and a half of the movie, plus walking through the parking lot left me sweating and almost crying by the time I got home after the first time.
And I still went a second time with my wife, my best friend, and his husband.
Obviously, people value things differently, and me going through that doesn’t mean the movie is some kind perfect thing that everyone would and should enjoy as much as we did. But if you’re a d&d fan, and/or if you like fantasy action movies, and you don’t at least watch it once, you’re missing out on what may be the best example of that genre in recent history.
It’s at least on par with action fantasy like Willow, and that’s pretty much the best example of that genre.
