Wrath of the Dragon God

I just watched (most of) the Sci-Fi Channel’s new Dungeons and Dragons movie, Wrath of the Dragon God. The first movie to carry the Dungeons and Dragons name was barely survivable, even by first powering up like a Super Saiyan, and its only redeeming feature was a cameo by Tom Baker. This movie was a good sight better, though it was still obviously built around the concept of putting a 17th-level adventure on camera. After seeing illustrations in the opening credits lifted directly from the Monster Manual (the Devourer and the Kraken, I believe) and the poor high-level mage fail at an attempt at multiclassing as a cleric without selecting a patron diety (and multiclassing is almost never beneficial for high-level casters), I found that the easy way through this film for a hardcore geek was to get out the books and track all the direct spell names and other references. References to Jubilex, Obad-Hai, the Ghost Tower of Inverness, and the Barrier Peaks put this story somewhere in Oerth (Greyhawk for all those who don’t care for it).

The commercials featured the first TV ads for the D&D game I’ve ever seen, a nice break from the endless barrage from Earthlink and HP. I would rewrite the three rules ad (1. Never split the party 2. Keep the cleric alive 3. Always check for traps) as follows to address some major mistakes I saw characters make as follows:
1. Never summon a MAGMIN in a LIBRARY.
2. Don’t read books in the bath.
3. Don’t send your pigeon familiar to trigger traps.

The writers of this movie at least allowed the heroes to contribute to the victory at the end, unlike the first one which ended in a mess of deus ex machina. I felt that, to redeem themselves from having done something right, they’d at least have to True Resurrect the fallen at the end, and one shot suggested this might be so.
Overall… I’ll go with somewhere between Strictly Average and Top of Average.