Knights of Badassdom ~ Cinema Review

 It is rare that the reality of geek-dom crosses swords with the new fashion interest of nerds. Featuring the Dungeons and Dragons expansion of LARPING, real time role playing, this new film injects humour into the hobby. In fact it leaves with a strong sense that running around woods with a foam sword, shouting about healing potions and point, might actually be absolutely awesome! For such a blatantly mid range film it has no shame in its corniness and showcases some surprising famous faces.


The lovely Ryan Kwanten from True Blood appears as a lovelorn warrior freshly hijacked by his caring friends to experience the glory of their weekend hobby. Though, sadly he appears fully clothed in every scene, perhaps proving that he isn't just a pretty face. His character is the same dozy jock style as in previous outings; but whose to say type casting is a bad thing.


The original warrior of the gang is Peter Dinklage, a duel wielding power house with a wicked sense of humour and a strong penchant for recreational plants and mind altering products. Fresh from ongoing roles such as Game of Thrones it might seem like he's never out of costume, but he does seem spectacularly suited to this character.


Summer Glau plays the love interest, a formidable and unattainable warrior, clearly a departure from her more famous roles in Firefly and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. She initially attended for her socially inept cousin, however now her interest has flourished and she seems to take it just as seriously. Her ice queen attitude is better suited to roles like these, which do not require emotions to task her rigid acting skill set.

Perpetual sidekick Steve Zahn again plays the primary side kick, a level something or other magician (decidedly better casting than his role in Sahara, which will always annoy Clive Cussler fans!). A die hard role-player with aspirations of unleashing an awesome spell worthy of admiration and next level. Ebay bid sniping led to the purchase of an ancient 'magical' looking book, which in turn leads to a whole lot of mumbo jumbo and hence the summoning of a real hell demon.

Expecting only a faux dragon to do battle with, the role players are unaware and hideously unprepared for the impending slaughter. Its up to the gang to save 'the Kingdom', from local bullying jocks and a man in a monster suit (Abominog).

It is hard to take this film seriously, the acting appears to be an extension of LARPING itself, but the overblown dramatics suit the film style and the bad acting appears completely in context with the characters. Perhaps better suited for fans of  The Princess Bride or Your Highness, this is far from a blockbuster film.

The plot is great but the financial trouble the film ran into, the behind the scenes conflicts and the independent editing, took the film in a strange direction at the end (I for one would love to see the original edit of the film!). If you can forgive the inherent cheesiness and incredible monster 'CGI' it makes for an awful yet strangely pleasant movie. A guaranteed future 'cult' film, which deserves more attention than the cynical critics will ever give it.