YMMV / Dungeons & Dragons (2000)

• Adorkable: Marina: most of her humorous moments involve her trying to keep up her posh aristocratic personality and it falling flat in the world of the commoners, leaving her awkwardly bumbling around trying to keep up.
• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Snails may have been annoying, but his death was just brutal, and it sends the formerly-unshakable Ridley into a Heroic BSoD just shy of the Despair Event Horizon.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Profion is devoured by a dragon while gloating.
• Award Snub: As highlighted by Cinematic Excrement, the Golden Raspberry Award didn't nominate the movie for anything, even with some egregiously questionable acting between Thora Birch's Dull Surprise and everyone else's Ham and Cheese. (The now-defunct Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, on the other hand, gave D&D eight nominations, though stiff competition led to no awards.)
• Awesome Music: The Main Suite, which provides both the opening AND the closing of the film, and a portion of the action music during Ridley's soirée through the "maze" in the Thieves' Guild. It is, sadly, the only really good music to come from the film.
• Complete Monster: The wicked Damodar is first the right-hand-man of Profion, seeking to dominate all Izmir. Damodar kills those in his path to recover a map that leads to the staff of dragons, torturing the heroine Marina for its location as well. Seemingly slain, Damodar returns a century hence while killing more people to obtain the Dragon Orb to awaken the evil Faluzure, the Dragon God of Decay and Undeath. Killing and torturing even more people, Damodar requests the dragon burn all Izmir to massacre the people, all for petty revenge on their ancestors for his first and well-deserved end.
• Critical Backlash: While the film hasn't received the widespread vindication of being actually considered "good", a growing consensus among audiences — especially following the game's Newbie Boom of the mid-late 2010's, way after the film came out — is that it's actually quite faithful to the game in a very accidental way, that being how it represents a typical D&D session by amateurs with loads of plot holes, cheesy acting, and a tenuously-coherent story. Once you imagine the movie taking place in the heads of a bunch of schoolkids playing D&D, the DM playing Profion and hamming it up and everyone just goofing around and having fun, it becomes easier to swallow in a So Bad, It's Good way.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Xilus, leader of the Thieves' Guild, is fondly remembered despite appearing in only scene. This is most likely because Richard O'Brien makes him just so entertaining to watch.
• Ethnic Scrappy: Snails' Uncle Tomfoolery endeared him to few.
• Evil Is Cool: Irons' scenery-devouring performance as Profion is easily more entertaining than the performance of the heroes, who range from passable to forgettable to flat to obnoxious.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: Damodar's blue lipstick, although it may have been due to a drug problem (the in-setting drug Sannish — think morphine if it came from dogs instead of poppies — dyes the users lips blue). Either way, you see it and think, "Ichiban Lipstick for Men!"
  • Sannish was first mentioned in the third-edition Book of Vile Darkness — which came out two years after the movie, suggesting that the book may have been trying to justify Damodar's look.
• Fight Scene Failure: Elwood has the look of a rough-and-tumble brawler (and manages to leg-sweep Damodar in his first appearance), but his only major fight scene in the Thieves' Guild basically has him spin around and throw his opponents away. The DVD commentary admits the scene needed some much better fight choreography.
• Fridge Logic: The Empress attacks with a flock of Golden Dragons, AKA Fire monsters. The Mages counterattack with ... fireballs and Red Dragons!? So, you're attacking a creature immune to fire with fire...?
• Ham and Cheese: Jeremy Irons isn't just ham and cheese, he is the entire cheese wheel next to a side of a whole roast pork, as he revels in Chewing the Scenery here. As such, some people who have seen the film consider him the only good part of it.
  • This film also contains Richard O'Brien. This is notable for one very significant reason: he might be the most understated actor in the whole film. Think about that for a minute.
• He Really Can Act: After spending the whole film as an annoying comic relief sidekick, Marlon Wayans actually delivers an effective dramatic turn in Snails' last moments, really selling how brutal his end is while making a previously obnoxious character seem genuinely valiant.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Tom Baker's One-Scene Wonder moment of the film features him as Halvarth using magic to heal Ridley; said magic appears in the form of a golden glow near-identical to that of regeneration energy from the Revival Series of Doctor Who, which wouldn't start until five years after this movie's release. Considering that Baker is best known for playing the fourth incarnation of the Doctor in the Classic Series of Doctor Who (which had already been cancelled for 11 years by the time this movie came out), this makes the similarity all the more hilarious.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Many viewers tune in only to appreciate Jeremy Irons' hilariously over-the-top acting (with some love thrown towards Bruce Payne's Cold Ham performance).
• Love to Hate: Profion in concept is nothing groundbreaking, but Jeremy Irons' beautifully over the top performance makes him the most entertaining part of the film.
• Narm: Ridley's Big "NO!" when Damodar kills Snails, complete with dropping to his knees and a Skyward Scream. The triumphant-sounding music playing during that scene doesn't make it any better, almost as if the movie was celebrating the death of Snails.
  • Every word out of Damodar's mouth.
    • The "Do not let them escape" scene is a good example. It looks like he's about to laugh and it's not helped by the fact that he's really slowly telling them to hurry.
    • Not to mention his utterly ridiculous facial expressions when Profion puts that worm ... thing in his brain.
    • "Just like you thieves. Always taking things that don't belong to you."
  • Again, the bright blue lipstick. Combine that with Damodar's bald head, heavily shadowed eyebrows, and his actor's preeningly gloating facial expressions, and he comes across less like a brutish evil warrior and more like a drag queen who can't find his wig.
  • That noise that the dwarf makes after his helmet is shot off. It's a high-pitched "Nyur! Nyur!" sort of sound. Some think it was a mating call.
  • Similarly, Marina screaming "I'M NOT [evil like other Mages]!" She sounds like a goose honking.
  • Damodar mind-raping Marina with the mind worm... thing, coming out of his ears.
  • As The Nostalgia Critic puts it, "Profion" sounds like a name for a heartburn medication. In French, it sounds like "pro anus".
  • In a movie filled with much scenery-chewing, Thora Birch stands out as the worst performance by putting in as little effort as humanly possible. Of particular note is the scene where Empress Savina verbally spars with Profion. Jeremy Irons hamming it up like there's no tomorrow contrasting with Birch showing not an ounce of emotion is a sight to behold.
• Nightmare Fuel: Profion is normally such an over-the-top ham that it's pretty much impossible to take him seriously, but when Damodar reports back to him after losing the scroll to Marina, he lapses into icy, soft-spoken, affable, terrifying anger. He curses Damodar with a parasite that will slowly kill him from the inside out, watches impassively as Damodar writhes in agony, and warns him that he will not tolerate another failure.
  Damodar: It was ... a mistake. It will not happen again.
  Profion: Now there you are right. And here's why...
• One-Scene Wonder: Tom Baker and Richard O'Brien both steal the film in what little screen time they have.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: After spending his screen-time being goofy, annoying and cowardly, Snails shows his true colors when he's cornered by Damodar. Despite looking like he's about to piss himself the whole time, he slowly turns to face the evil Mage, steps forward to meet him, pulls a knife out of his boot and takes a fighting stance. Even when Damodar beats him to a pulp and demands the Dragon's Eye, Snails tells him where to stick it and charges him again. Then, when Ridley is about to hand over the Dragon's Eye in hopes of saving him, Snails pulls the map out, grins, and tosses it to Ridley, sealing his fate so that his friend can continue his quest. Whether this absolved him entirely is a matter of debate, but Snails undeniably went out with honor, proving himself a brave hero deep down.
• So Bad, It's Good: Much of the movie is hilarious in its cheesiness, hamminess and dated effects (and genuinely hilarious on rare occasions), unless you're a serious D&D fan, in which case it's like being eaten feet first by rats.
• The Scrappy: Snails is quite hated. It's rather telling that everyone else in the film gets more laughs than the intended comic relief, even if those laughs are unintentional. His stereotypical and obnoxious nature feels horribly out of place and even more annoying, with Marlon Wayans' performance doing little to alleviate this. While some people felt his final scene redeems him a bit, or at least makes him pitiable, others celebrated him exiting the film.
• So Bad, It Was Better: The film was an absolute train wreck, but it also had a lot of heart. It was the pet project and a true labor of love for Courtney Solomon and it shows with some truly impactful moments and endearingly bad performances. If anything, the film's problems mostly come down to Solomon trying way too hard to make the best movie possible when it was clearly beyond his means. Comparatively, the sequel Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God was infinitely more competent but often considered So Okay, It's Average. The word there is "often" of course — there are some fans who prefer the sequel and would rather this movie didn't even exist.
• Special Effect Failure: The CGI at best looks like a high end PlayStation 1 cutscene, this is particularly obvious on the dragons, who often look low-rez and move robotically. Similar to Solomon, the film's VFX supervisor, Grant Boucher, was also a fan of the game, and even consulted on the appearances of the dragons.
  • The quicksand carpet that tries to suck in Snails is quite obviously made out of oatmeal. It also proved to be an issue behind the scenes too, requiting three takes to get it right.
• Take That, Scrappy!: Snails getting brutally beaten to death by Damodar scored the latter points by those who hated Snails. However, note Alas, Poor Scrappy. Snails' agonized screams as Damodar practically tortures him to an inch of his life are way too real...
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: Tom Baker. Though he is immune to this trope, in the same way William Shatner is.
• WTH, Costuming Department?: The costume design is cheap and shoddy all around, but bonus points go to Damodar's entire look. Bright blue lipstick in a fantasy setting would be tacky even on a female character, putting it on the villain's burly main henchman is a whole separate level of laughable. When it comes to the props, apart from a handful of swords, all the armor and weapons look very much like they're made of foam, with soft edges where they should be sharp, with very matted and definitively nonmetallic-looking "metal" armor.

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