The Gamers: Dorkness Rising (2008)

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Sadly Over-hyped

A Disappointing Continuation

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

I am so impressed, really. I expected cheesy gamer humor and nothing else.OK, there's a ton of pretty geeky humor. But the movie is so well done. The acting is quite good.The dialog, while gamer cheesy at times, I guess to cater to the gamer crowd, is not bad at all. At times it's even, dare I say, great.When the female gamer, who built this non traditional fighter type character rather then the usual (min/max) type gets all these additional attacks (seem right, I did not check the rules,) it was cool.The sets are amazing for what must be a fairly low production movie.The story moves right along. The transitions from game world to real world are well done. A male playing a female character would sometimes be played by a female, and sometimes by himself. Pretty clever, I thought.The guy who decided to play a female, but kept forgetting he was female was good for a lot of laughs. He even said tag at one point, and the female walked on to play the role ( sorry, I did not look her name up, she did great though.) The guy always trying to "get some", got a bit tedious, but I guess that was more gamer humor.There was just so much to like about the movie. Lighthearted. Fun! Very well done and I am saying that as a movie fan, not a gamer (and I am not a D&D player.) As I said I expected SO much less.Movies often don't hold my attention, I end up listening to them while working on my computer. This one held my attention. I can't give a movie much higher praise.

Better than the original, "the Gamers: Dorkness Rising" manages to pull off a funny comedy with good acting, fine special effects, and comedy that transcends the "gamer" knowledge-base and do so on a low budget. I've seen many low-budget films that have been terrible and almost none that have been as good as their high-budget counterparts. This film blows most mainstream movies away! Parts are a bit weak (the bit with the pirates and ninjas -while funny- goes on a bit long without explanation and takes you out of the movie for a bit) but, overall, this is a very strong film.I'm very happy to say that I bought this film as soon as I saw it and brought it home.Any chance we can look forward to another feature Gamers movie from these guys? :)

There are few films that have had me waiting and waiting for release more than this one. This is the latest film from The Dead Gentlemen group responsible for the original Gamers film and the Demon Hunters films. This group has not been terribly active over the last few years but this film is a definite reason to try and keep things up in following their progress.This film follows a group of gamers who are trying to finish a campaign run by a GM frustrated by his group's disregard for his story. With the help of some new blood they attempt the campaign again with hopes of finishing this time.This movie is a breath of fresh air in the movie community and a great improvement over the original. The movie shows respect for the game much like the original movie did but on top of that this movie shows a dramatic improvement on special effects launching it above the simplicity of college films. The acting is fairly decent and the jokes are quite funny.Unfortunately many of the jokes are in jokes so if you are not a gamer you may not find the film as funny as others. So this is why I give the movie an 8 instead of the 9 that I initially thought of. Any case if you are a gamer or know about gaming check this one out you will enjoy it.

Just got back from the European Premiere of The Gamers: Dorkness Rising.All I can say is that if you are a gamer (CRPG, RPG or LARP), then this movie is for you. And if you're not a gamer? Well, it's still a great deal of fun.The acting is certainly not Oscar-worthy, but in the whole element of the movie it adds to the charm. The humour is everywhere, along with some very nice touches (the tribute to Gary Gygax is especially well done, if you can spot it). The cast are very down to earth in their appearance, befitting the fact that they are ordinary people enjoying an ordinary hobby.The quality of the movie's sound and vision are adequate, but again, it all just adds to the atmosphere that helps to define this movie as being the Dungeons and Dragons movie, written and performed by gamers for gamers.Not afraid to use terminology specific to one system, they still manage to allow product placement to be a part of the movie, but in a very understandable and utterly fair manner. It also touches on some of the perceived prejudices that some gamers can have about other gamers and deals with that quite well.All in all the movie is very much driven by an well-thought-out equal balance of character, plot and entertainment (the Bard is amazingly good value-for-money).In the end it does make scoring this movie quite hard, so I have given it 2 scores.Score (for non-RP'ers): 7/10 (A few moments could go way over your head, but the main sections of the movie just work so hard and achieve so much more.)Score (for RP'ers): 10/10 (Everything fits together, in the perfect quantities, and with the perfect charm and sentiment)