Hawk The Slayer (1980)

Four essential movies shaped my early Dungeons & Dragons games: namely Jason & The Argonauts from 1963; Sinbad And The Eye of The Tiger (which I saw at the cinema with my parents when it came out in 1977); Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated (and unfinished) Lord Of The Rings; and the legendary Hawk The Slayer (from 1980).

As with my commentary on The Messenger the other week, all these movies are review-proof in my eyes, and so this isn't going to be a critical hatchet job - instead, it will read more like a hagiography. 

Sinbad And The Eye Of The Tiger, being the first Dungeons & Dragons-y film I saw after discovering the game, was a major source of material.

One of my first characters was actually called 'Sinbad' and most of the ship's crew and other supporting characters from the film appeared as non-player characters at some time or other in my games.

It was also this film which inspired the epic trans-oceanic adventures that young Gublin and I mapped out on seemingly never-ending rolls of paper, making up the islands and continents as our characters' ship discovered them.

As I've already said several times on this blog, it was Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion animation in Jason & The Argonauts (and later in Clash Of The Titans) that really decided the 'look' of Dungeons & Dragons monster fighting (in my mind) for me.

But it was Hawk The Slayer that had the closest overall feel of pure Dungeons & Dragons as we actually played it, even with its micro-budget and B-movie mentality.

As much as I love the movie, I find it difficult to compare to those other three formative cinematic influences - as, to me, they are all perfect.

However, it's easy to see why Hawk The Slayer, in particular, holds a certain cachet with old school gamers.

It has everything a classic game of Dungeons & Dragons requires! The party's charismatic leader Hawk (John Terry who also happens to play Jack's dad in Lost which just adds to the geek cred of the film) has a magic sword and a feud with his one-eyed Darth Vader-like brother Voltan (Jack Palance).

He takes a mission to raise the 2,000 gold pieces needed to ransom an abbess (Victor Meldrew's wife, Annette Crosbie) back from Voltan.

To aid him, Hawk teams up with adventuring friends old and new including a giant (who is basically just the tall bloke from the Carry On films, Bernard Bresslaw), the coolest elf in cinema history (Crow - Ray Charleson - could whoop Legolas any day of the week with his superspeed archery), a dwarf, a one-handed fighter with a machine-gun crossbow and a magic-user called, simply, "Woman" (whose spells strongly resemble smoke, snow and wind machines, luminous ping-pong balls, silly string and assorted 70s disco lighting effects).

Set this all in a land permanently enshrouded in fog, with a funky synth music score and spaghetti western whistly bits; enough name dropping to give the impression of a full-developed country; and more than enough chewy, cheesy dialogue to satiate the diet of both a giant and a dwarf and you've got a "realistic" depiction of 99 per cent of how I viewed every fantasy roleplaying game I played back in the day.

If it isn't already compulsory for those about to start an old school Dungeons & Dragons campaign to watch this film... it should be!

Woochi The Demon Slayer (2009)

Korean action-adventure Woochi The Demon Slayer is so jam-packed with geekgasm-worthy awesomeness it almost defies description.

Although it plays around with time and space, for the most part the first act is a fast-paced magic-laden 16th Century wuxia epic of Woochi (Dong-won Kang), a cocky Taoist trainee wizard showing off and fighting shapechanging demon-goblins while trying to get his hands on a magical bronze dagger.

As all this is going on two Taoist masters - one of whom is Woochi's teacher - have been hunting for the Archgod's Pipe, a powerful artifact that the demons also desire.

Unfortunately, one of the masters, Hwadam (Yun-seok Kim), becomes corrupt - although the three bumbling Taoist godlings, tasked with recapturing the demons they allowed to escape in the first place, are oblivious to all this.

Hwadam frames Woochi for the murder of his master and the gods-stuck-in-human-form exile Woochi and his faithful companion Chorangyi (Hae-jin Yu) into a pair of paintings... where they remain for 500 years.

The action then cuts to modern day, in a major Korean city, when the immortal minor gods realise they have to free Woochi to help them capture a pair of goblin-demons and retrieve the Archgod's Pipe.

Without missing a beat the film metamorphoses into a superhero flick of the highest calibre, with the same incredible standard of CGI effects already established in the dazzling 'old world' segment seamlessly transposing to the modern day.

Unfortunately, Choi Dong-Hoon's direction (he also wrote the script) takes its foot off the accelerator for a bit in the latter half of the movie and while it certainly doesn't drag, there's a definite slow-down in proceedings almost up until the extended final conflict.

The range and creativity of the stunts and effects are mind-boggling, with people stepping in and out of paintings, exploding into clouds of smoke, running up the sides of buildings etc Although much of this has been seen in other wuxia movies, it has never been on quite this scale or with this rapidity and grace.

Woochi's particular take on magic alone should be fascinating to Western viewers - the Taoist wizards would certainly run rings around Merlin and Gandalf! Our first introduction to the roguish Woochi is a stunning display of magic and comedy unlike anything I've seen before - how often do we see Harry Potter passing himself off as a god to wind-up some muggles?

All the time, there is a lightness of touch and great humour to the proceedings, but this certainly isn't light-weight with some several, clever, visual plot devices that rival the stylings of Inception and Doctor Who.

If Woochi could have maintained the breakneck pacing of its first act throughout, it would have easily been in the running for recognition as one of the greatest action films of all time; even so it remains an incredible 115 minutes of cinema that puts many Hollywood blockbusters to shame.

The Hobbit - The Battle Of The Five Armies (2014)

And so Peter Jackson's epically-padded adaptation of a 300-page children's book into three two-and-a-half hour films comes to end with a concluding chapter that is essentially (as the title suggests) one giant battle.

And, yet, oddly, I found The Battle Of The Five Armies the easiest of the trilogy to sit through, quite possibly because it was just vignette-after-vignette of a massive fantasy battle.

It still suffered from dreadful sub-plot bloat:

• Thorin's "dragon sickness" - which started off as fascinating character development - got worse and worse until he had a fever-vision and then it suddenly got better;
• Any scene with Alfrid, the right-hand man of the Master Of Laketown, was just a waste of celluloid;
• Billy Connolly's Dain was a potentially interesting - if stereotypical Scottish - dwarf to throw into the mix, but then he disappeared from the action; 
• Whatever happened to the giant wormy-things that burst out of the ground and were never seen again? 
• What was the point of showing Beorn being parachuted into the battle if we never saw him again?
• etc  etc

The opening pre-credit sequence - the death of Smaug - should have been the finale of The Desolation Of Smaug and I really could have done without Peter Jackson's obsession with Legolas and his physics-defying stunts.

Moments like this tend to bring home the fact that you're just watching what amounts to someone else playing a very expensive video game - and sometimes the graphics aren't even that good.

Thankfully the misty, blur-o-vision that was so prevalent in the trailers doesn't seep in that often in the actual movie.

As much as I enjoyed the variety of fantasy races and monsters clashing, jumping around, killing each other and so on, for me, the most interesting part came with Bilbo's return to The Shire to find all his property being auctioned off - I could have watched more of that!

The hobbits are the most unique creatures in Tolkien's work and therefore the most interesting as they don't seem to fit comfortably with the rest of rough-and-ready Middle-Earth. That's why, if you're going to pad out a story entitled The Hobbit, I feel there ought to be more about hobbits!

Much like the Star Wars Prequels, I'm sure I'll come round to liking these three movies eventually, but they're never going to come close to Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings, which is a shame.

You have to wonder if The Hobbit might have been better treated as a single movie or maybe two, without all the spurious padding.

The book has stood the test of time without anyone feeling the need to write additional chapters and inflate it to the size of Lord Of The Rings, so perhaps there's a lesson there.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: What Was Gandalf's Handicap?

"...and knocked their king Golfimbul's head clean off with a wooden club. It sailed a hundred yards through the air and went down a rabbit-hole, and in this way the battle was won and the game of Golf invented at the same moment."

Back in 2012 I decided to reread The Hobbit, both to relax and mentally prepare me for Peter Jackson's new movie (An Unexpected Journey), and the thing that has immediately struck me (and probably explains why I stopped reading the book repeatedly after I grew out of my teens) is just what a clunky writer old JRRT is.

He may be a world-maker, language-crafter and mythology-weaver without equal in the realm of fantasy writing, but even if we ignore the odd similes that refer to 'steam engines' and 'pop-guns', or the fact that Bilbo has a clock on his mantlepiece, or that the 'terrifying' trolls are called Bill Huggins, Bert and Tom (these are the same trolls that turn up as petrified scenery in Lord Of The Rings), there is no excusing the ridiculous sentence that I began this piece with.

Read it again and just think about it. Golf was invented in Middle-Earth, before the time of The Hobbit, and was therefore probably being played during the War Of The Ring!

Did I skip the chapter where Legolas and Gimli worked out their racial differences on the Anfalas greens? Did the war disrupt the scheduling of the Rivendell Open?

And talking of Rivendell, check out this fantastic piece of elfish verse:

"O! tril-lil-lil-lolly
the valley is jolly,
ha!ha!"

And I'm only three chapters in. Makes me almost miss Tom Bombadil...

I adore the world Tolkien created, the life he gave to the creatures and races he peopled it with, but I just find the actual words he uses to tell his stories so laboured at times*.

The Hobbit is an easier read than Lord Of The Rings, of course, because it's written for children, not even young adults, but children too innocent to groan at awful puns and cheesy rhymes.

But surely I can't be the only one who has difficulties believing the world of The Hobbit is the same world that Lord Of The Rings takes place in?

For starters, where are all the golf clubs?

* As a side note to demonstrate how contrary I can be, I absolutely love listening to the audiobook of The Silmarillion (I have both the Martin Shaw and the Andy Serkis versions).

The Hobbit - The Desolation Of Smaug (2013)

One of the main things to take away from The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug is that it is infinitely better than its predecessor (An Unexpected Journey).

While, at two-and-a-half hours, it still feels padded, it also doesn't feel as though you are just enduring it in the hope that the next part of the trilogy is better.

Gone is the juvenilia of An Unexpected Journey (no naff musical numbers or English-speaking trolls) to be replaced with a more consistent tone of all-out action. This feels like it's part of the Lord Of The Rings universe.

Of course, it does suffer the curse of the "middle film" - as most trilogies do - in that it starts in media res and ends the same, not with a resolution but a powerful cliffhanger that should guarantee your return for the final movie.

For a large part of The Desolation Of Smaug, the story is split between the dwarves' continuing mission to reach and reclaim Erebor and Gandalf's investigations into the machinations of the mysterious Necromancer of Dol Guldur.

But both segments move the main plot forward and are equally engaging, visually and mentally.

Two major action locations stick in my mind: the most alien-like encounter with the spiders of Mirkwood (which leads to the dwarves capture by the wood elves) and the climactic confrontation with Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, who also lends his vocal chords to the Necromancer).

I had feared that the dwarves escape from the wood elves would turn into a proof of concept promotional video for a barrel ride attraction at the future Hobbit World theme park, but the sequence is nicely broken up with other distractions.

The padding comes in with the added elements, like the bizarrely unnecessary 'love triangle' involving Legolas (Orlando Bloom), Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) and Kili (Aidan Turner), one of Thorin's band of hardy adventurers.

Even Laketown, which is wonderfully atmospheric in appearance, comes across slightly Discworld-y in the presentation of its internal politics and generally paranoia, as encapsulated in the central performance of the Master of Laketown (Stephen Fry) who acts as though he stepped out of a Terry Pratchett novel or Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast.

His toady assistant. Alfrid (Ryan Gage) is sadly little more than a less-than-successful recycling of Grima Wormtongue.

However, for all its weak points, The Desolation Of Smaug is worthy of repeated viewings - although possibly not as regularly as The Lord Of The Rings - even if only to marvel at the wonderful array of monsters on show.

The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Although I now class Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings as one of my favourite movies, I wasn't overly impressed when I first saw The Fellowship Of The Ring at the cinema. There were too many long shots of people in fancy dress walking through fields and the narrative didn't flow that well. It was only when I saw the extended, director's cut on DVD that I began to appreciate the majesty of Jackson's ambitious enterprise.

So, I suppose there's every possibility that one day I will come to love to An Unexpected Journey. But I can't see it being any time soon.

One of the major problems I have with it (beyond being way too long) is it is simply isn't The Lord Of The Rings. Although there are moments of brilliance in this first, 169-minute segment of The Hobbit, it lurches from broad comedy to grim dourness with very clumsy footing.

It also becomes very clear that the source material is a book aimed squarely at very young children, with its alliteratively-named dwarvish troupe of adventurers, anachronistic sporting references and trolls named Burt and Tom.

On one hand we have the orc war-band speaking in sub-titles, then we have the trolls and goblins speaking English.

There's no sense that this is a real world, something which the original three movies achieved effortlessly.

There are scenes - such as the gathering of big-wigs at Rivendell - that feel wholly enmeshed in this world we have grown to love, but then there's the stupidly-named trolls (one also uses a handkerchief) and other moments of juvenilia, that I know are from Tolkien's book, but still don't tally with the flawless verisimilitude of Middle-Earth from Lord Of The Rings.

The rabbit-drawn sled I can let slide (I have a soft spot for rabbits), but the preposterous stone giants: why, just why?

Although there's some meaty exposition up-front, the film starts really slowly with the dwarves arrival at Bag End and the whole set-up for the plot (could have done without the "That's What Bilbo Baggins Hates" song that came dangerously close to tipping this piece over into high camp).

Then even once the adventurers get going there's a diversion for the audience to visit the nature wizard Radagast The Brown (Sylvester McCoy) which, while visually interesting, takes about quarter-of-an-hour to show us something that Gandalf tells Elrond et al in a couple of lines.

And so it goes on, in fits and starts.

Just as you think the pace is picking up, something will pop up to slow things back down again and the plot doesn't really get flowing until the final act - namely Bilbo (Martin Freeman) playing the 'riddle game' with Gollum (Andy Serkis); the dwarves escape from goblin town (which in a sense is just a replay of the Fellowship escaping Moria, but with wooden bridges replacing stone); then the fight with the orcs; and finally the arrival of the eagles (which is handled very well, as it isn't explained because we know exactly what to expect when we see Gandalf talking to the moth he has captured).

Do have to wonder though why the eagles couldn't carry our heroes a bit closer to their final destination?

There are also odd moments where - given that technology has presumably moved on quite a bit since the Rings films - some of the special effects jarred; there's some quite noticeable green-screening which is always a good way to kick you out of the moment. Is this a side effect of Jackson's use of a higher frame-rate to shoot the movie?

While the director's cuts of all three parts of Lord Of The Rings are long, they flow gorgeously and never feel like a chore, but the two hours 42 minutes (plus about seven minutes of credits) of An Unexpected Journey really felt like a marathon.

It was certainly rewarding once we crossed the finish line, and the final shot of Smaug waking up was worth its weight in gold - but then you have to realise we're only a third of the way.

Perhaps the narrative will flow better when we can watch all three pictures back-to-back and see the full vision that Jackson is bringing to this tale.

There's clearly been a lot of backstory added (from Tolkien's other work) to build up the story of the Necromancer and create a bridge to The Lord Of The Rings and I can't help wishing that more emphasis had been put on this and a scalpel had been taken to the actual story of The Hobbit to strip it back to its core elements.

Warcraft - The Beginning (2016)

Continuing my meander through movies based on video games I know little about, the immediate takeaway from Warcraft: The Beginning is that it's a million times better than Assassin's Creed.

Up to this point - barring a very short (we're talking a matter of minutes) and unrewarding stab at trying to play World Of Warcraft online - my primary exposure to the setting was Meredith's eight-part tabletop campaign she ran for the Tuesday Knights back in 2013.

I still came to Warcraft: The Beginning knowing almost nothing about the wider world, but Duncan Jones' movie opened with a tidal wave of world-building, as characters darted from one beautiful location to another and back again during the first act.

There's clearly a mountain of backstory and lore built up over the years that this game has been running, and it's almost overwhelming as the viewer is bombarded by evocative names and locations with whiplash-inducing speed.

At times Warcraft: The Beginning feels as though the film-makers are squeezing 10 hours-worth of intricate storytelling and plot development into a two-hour movie.

The world of the orcs is dying and so their sorcerer supreme Gul'dan (Daniel Wu) uses his powerful necrotic magic known as The Fell (it's kinda like the dark side of The Force) to open a portal to the peaceful world of Azeroth, which he sees as prime real estate for a new orc kingdom.

Among the initial wave of orcs he brings through is the idealistic clan chief Durotan (Toby Kebbell), who quickly realises that the only reason their homeworld was dying is because of Gul'dan's use of The Fell, which is fuelled by life energy.

So Durotan tries to engineer peaceful contact with the ruling human kingdom, ruled by the Preacher partnership of Dominic Cooper (as King Llane Wrynn) and Ruth Negga (as Lady Taria).

Leading the human armies is Lady Taria's brother, Anduin Lothar (Vikings' Travis Fimmel, who is essentially still playing Ragnar Lothbrok, just in better armour), who takes a shine to 'mutant orc' Garona (Paula Patton), after he captures her during an initial spat between the two species.

Although riven with clichés about 'power corrupting' and the 'enemy of my enemy is my friend', the plot of Warcraft: The Beginning is surprisingly engaging.

Once your eyes have adjusted to surfeit of obviously CGI creatures and you accept that this isn't high class fantasy - like Lord Of The Rings or Game Of Thrones - but rather Sunday afternoon B-movie fare like that produced by Arrowstorm or my beloved Ray Harryhausen flicks from back in the day, it's rather an entertaining romp.

The twists and turns of the story veer off into silliness for the climax (which is clearly being contrived to set up sequels that are - sadly - never going to appear), but the fight scenes and depictions of the magical arts are superb.

While most of the plot is quite predictable (and that's not necessarily a bad thing), it makes an 'interesting' and 'brave' narrative choice towards the end to take the story is a surprisingly un-Hollywood direction.

Obviously, I don't know how close Warcraft: The Beginning sticks to the established mythology of the video game, but what we are presented with here works really well.

It's a criminal shame, though, that the other main races of Azeroth - namely the dwarves and elves - are reduced to little more than background extras; it would have been cool to see members of these other races fighting alongside Anduin Lothar.

While Warcraft: The Beginning still hasn't persuaded me to play the online game, it has kindled the desire to see more Warcraft movies (should they ever materialise) and maybe learn a bit more about the world of Azeroth.

Eragon (2006)

In a magical world where dragons are the suppressed symbol of a better age, why does no one spot that the name of a simple farm boy (Ed Speleers) is simply "dragon" with the first letter bumped to the next in the alphabet: Eragon?

It also manages to sound as close as possible to Aragorn (the most famous of fantasy heroes?) without risking a lawsuit from the Tolkien Estate.

Although I'd imagine it would be the Lucasfilm lawyers knocking at the door first as the script is pretty much a reskinning of Star Wars with Eragon as Luke, Brom (Jeremy Irons) as Obi-Wan, Uncle Garrow (Alun Armstrong) as Uncle Owen, the evil king Galbatorix (John Malkovich) and his wizard Durza (Robert Carlyse) as The Emperor and Vader, the captured Princess Arya (Sienna Guillory) as Leia, the rebel Varden as... well, The Rebels; I think you get the picture by now!

Even the supernatural power of The Force is personified by Eragon's CGI dragon Saphira (voiced by Rachel Weisz) - and Eragon's innate dragon-magic (plot-wise, Saphira also doubles as the Millennium Falcon and the plans to the Death Star!)

There are places where some of the less abysmal dialogue and scenes feel like they are lifted directly from George Lucas' Original Trilogy, with just a few minor tweaks - from magic that "flows through" and "unites" a dragon and its rider to Durza killing an unsuccessful 'boss' minion then promoting one its colleagues into its place.

As there is no Han Solo analogue in the movie at this stage (don't worry, Garrett Hedlund's roguish Murtagh - who has a very Star Wars-y secret of his own - reveals himself a short time later), Durza tortures the Princess to send a 'false' telepathic 'distress call' to trick Eragon into facing him - think Vader on Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back - even though Brom (now in Yoda mode) tells the young farm boy he's not yet ready to face Durza.

And when Eragon busts the Princess out of the Death Star holding cell... er... Durza's castle, naturally Obi-Brom has to give his life so that the others can escape (although his death scene is more drawn out).

Not only is Eragon unoriginal, it is badly written (for instance, about half an hour in, Jeremy Irons makes an expositional speech that repeats the useful infodump delivered in the movie's stilted voice-over introduction) and the acting ranges from scene-chewingly hammy (by the established names in the cast - collecting their pay cheques and getting out as soon as possible) to simply bad (by everyone else, particularly from young Eragon himself).

Rather oddly, very early on, talk is made of there being elves and dwarves in the kingdom - but they never actually appear on screen, so you have to wonder why they were brought up in the first place?

On a positive note, the film looks great - the Eastern European scenery is spectacular, the costumes and weaponry are well crafted and the critters are suitably Dungeons & Dragons-y - but such little effort has been made to conceal the source material being plagiarised that the film's best use is as a "spot the Star Wars analogy" drinking game.

And like so many fantasy modern films that have tried to emulate the success of Star Wars, but failed to learn how to do it properly, Eragon finishes mid-story, expecting a sequel to be guaranteed.

Of course none was forthcoming, leaving many plot threads dangling and certain characters totally superfluous! 

The Dragon Chronicles: Fire & Ice (2008)

Who would have thought anything could have gone wrong with a sword and sorcery film starring Angel's delightful Amy Acker, supported by B-movie stalwarts such as Lord of The Rings' John Rhys-Davies and The Mummy's Arnold Vosloo?

Unfortunately what I failed to notice about The Dragon Chronicles: Fire & Ice, until it was too late, is that it was directed by Pitof, the man who gave us 2004's Catwoman (and not much else).

Acker is tomboy princess Luisa, whose father is the beneficent and liberal King Augustin (Vosloo) of the peaceful kingdom of Carpia.

Out of nowhere a fire dragon attacks the kingdom - the first attack in 20 years - and plagues the town for three months before Luisa decides to slip off into the woods and try to track down disgraced dragonslayer Allador...

Instead she discovers his son, Gabriel (Tom Wisdom), living rough with his manservant Sangimel (Rhys-Davis).

Sangimel is a bit of an inventor and I could accept his creation of chemical explosives, firelighters and fancy weapons but all credibility went out the window when he produced his medieval cine-projector to give an animated talk to Augustin on the life-cycle of dragons!!!

And the great plan these geniuses cook up to defeat the fire dragon? Release a more powerful ice dragon - sleeping under a glacier - to kill it!

Clearly they hadn't thought this through, but even I can see a major flaw in that plan.

However, the ultimate resolution of the situation is as wonderfully ludicrous as it is creative and kudos to the filmmakers for trying something a bit different.

The movie takes an interesting stance on dragons, presenting them as gigantic flying manta-rays constantly enveloped with their 'element of choice'.

Made in Romania, the scenery of The Dragon Chronicles is fantastic, the script less so and the cast aren't helped by some pretty shoddy lipsynching that suggests much of the movie was shot in another language (Romanian probably) and then badly dubbed back into English, like a '70s kung fu flick.

Produced by Media Pro Pictures (the Romanian company that also gave us the far superior Attack Of The Gryphon featuring another Buffyverse alumni Amber Benson) this was their first special effects/CGI film for their national television station ProTV in 2008.

There's even a novelisation of the movie available, written by award-winning Romanian children's author Stelian Turlea.

It has a similar story background to Attack Of The Gryphon, in that the action takes place between two small feuding kingdoms, but lacks the pizazz and chutzpah of its equally low-budget predecessor (dig the funky woolen chainmail armour or the painted cardboard masquerading as stained glass in the castle windows).

The Dragon Chronicles: Fire & Ice started off quite poorly and doesn't really get much better during its 82-minute duration, but there's a certain innocent naivety and charm about it that won me round in the end.

Certainly not one I'll be recommending to anyone who takes their film watching overly seriously, but as cheap beer-and-pretzel fodder for gamers and those with an interest in the genre it's a mild piece of harmless amusement, if not a classic.

Attack Of The Gryphon (2007)

Attack Of The Gryphon - or just Gryphon, as it is known in some quarters - is an American TV movie about two feuding kingdoms in the Land of Vallon that discover they need to work together to overcome a common foe.

Buffy's Amber Benson is Amelia of Lockland, a rugged, tom-boyish princess in the Joan of Arc mould, who has to team up with Prince Seth of Delphi (played by Jonathan LaPaglia, the younger brother of familiar TV face Anthony LaPaglia).

They are on quest to bring down the traitorous sorcerer Armand (Larry Drake, another familiar face - probably best remembered as L.A. Law's Benny Stulwicz), former counsellor to the King of Lockland, who has taken control of the kingdom's magical protector (a gryphon) and is using it to bring both warring kingdoms under his power.

If you can look past the feeble CGI used to give life to the gryphon, the bewildering array of accents and acting talents of the numerous performers and the obvious debt the film owes to such better known movies as Lord Of The Rings, it actually isn't that bad.

The script makes a half-decent effort at putting a fresh gloss on old clichés and while it doesn't always succeed, Benson's spunky Amelia and LaPaglia's rugged Seth are charismatic enough leads to carry the audience along... if they are willing to go on the journey.

While physically Benson is a surprising match for the role, initially it appears as though she is auditioning for a school play with her over-earnest line deliveries, but once out on the quest she settles better into the role.

Evil Armand, assisted by his two bizarrely-attired 'brides', uses more actual magic in this short film than Gandalf does in the entire Lord of The Rings trilogy and I suspect his 'magical slap' spell is employed using some kind of Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition 'at will' power, because he uses it a lot to smack our heroes and their sidekicks around in the climactic confrontation.

There's some romance, magical duels, an animated statue (obviously an actor painted grey) and even an actual, genuine, underground dungeon crawl sequence - with traps and treasure - that made the whole enterprise shine in my eyes.

Sadly, the treasure at the end of this dungeon crawl, the blade of the legendary Draconian Pike, looks very plastic - almost like one of those cheap kid's swords you find in pound stores - which rather undermines the gravitas of the moment.

Attack Of The Gryphon is only 90 minutes long and while not the 'epic' the DVD packaging proclaims, it's still a lot better than a vast swathe of the fantasy fodder that came out in the wake of Peter Jackson's Lord of The Rings.

For the fantasy roleplaying gamesmaster looking for an inspirational 'pick-me-up', it's a worthy investment of an hour and a half of your time.

ONE PRIME TO RULE THEM ALL

Knowing full-well that it's my 60th birthday in November, Prime Video has just released trailers for two franchise shows dropping that month that are right in my wheelhouse: one a returning fantasy series, the other a new sci-fi spin-off from a great couple of movies.

BLADE RUNNER 2099

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER, SEASON THREE

Rings of Power continues to chart the rise of Sauron in Middle-Earth, starting November 11, while all eight episodes of Blade Runner 2099 will drop on November 25.

Coincidentally, both shows have popular roleplaying games based on them, published by Free League.

Red Sonja (2025)

I'd put off watching Red Sonja for ages because I really, really wanted it to be a grand slice of sword-and-sorcery, but everything I had heard about it said it was awful.

If I remember rightly, the film had languished in post-production hell for (seemingly) years after it was shot, then suddenly popped up, got a single-night cinema release (I guess for legal or accounting reasons) and was then dropped on digital and solid media without much fanfare.

Things were not looking good, but I still held out hope.

And the thing, now that I've seen it, I wouldn't call it bad per se. But I couldn't, in all conscience, call it good either.

Red Sonja was created for Marvel Comics, at the height of their Conan boom in the 1970s. Although she treads the Hyborian Age lands of Robert E Howard's Conan, she was never a character in Howard's books. He wrote about a 16th Century warrior called Red Sonya. But there is no connection - except for red hair and a similar name.

Red Sonja is now a hugely successful character at Dynamite Comics, with several titles of her own as well as frequent transdimensional crossovers with other members of their stable, but still operating primarily in a version of Howard's Hyborian Age.

The film script by Tasha Huo bandies around names from Robert E Howard's adventure yarns of Conan The Barbarian, and I think there was even a half-hearted (and erroneous) nod to the Cimmerian warrior himself. 

But, Red Sonja never feels like it's part of an epic, sweeping world. It all feels rather small and ragtag, like a Roger Corman offering from the 1980s (but devoid of the raucous charm those films often had).

The scenery, both the Bulgarian exteriors and the (presumably) CGI fantasy locations and sets are all very impressive and certainly help create the mood for a fantasy movie.

It's just Huo's script and the direction of MJ Bassett that lets down the brave actors, who are coping as best they can with the material they have to work with.

After she survives the slaughter of her tribe by barbarians, Sonja (Matilda Lutz) grows up in an enormous forest, always looking for other survivors. I find it hard to believe, no matter how big this forest is supposed to be, that after 10 or 15 years she'd found no clues.

Eventually, she comes to the attention of the wicked emperor Draygan (The Umbrella Academy's Robert Sheehan) when she is captured and forced to fight in his gladiatorial arena.

Of course, she organises a rebellion and leads the gladiators to their freedom. They are pursued by Draygan and his army, which includes his consort, the highly-skilled ex-pit fighter Annisia (Krypton's Wallis Day), who is more adept with a blade than Sonja. 

And, honestly, that's about it for plot.

There's a bit about Draygan seeking the lost half of his ancient "book of secrets", which helps tie him (unsurprisingly) into Sonja's backstory. 

Despite what the Japanese film poster (below) may suggest, Draygan is not a wizard (which would have been way cooler) but some kind of techno-inventor. He's not quite steampunk, but he does create spikey Warhammer-like vehicles and mortars, which just feel incongruous in this setting.

Nature-loving Sonja has a special bond with her horse, which really reminded me of Brego and Aragorn in The Two Towers, but might also be a take on Geralt of Rivia and his horse, Roach, in The Witcher.

Like quite a lot in Red Sonja, this bond isn't really explained. And while some things work as a mystery, others need some degree of backstory.

For instance, there are a couple of great-looking ape-people in the film. And I liked the fact that there was no explanation of their presence, their species didn't even get a name. They were just part of the ensemble of characters.

We also can't overlook the nice gag about Sonja's infamous chainmail bikini. 

Towards the final act, Sonja undergoes a mystical transformation, truly becoming the She-Devil With A Sword we know from the comics - but really it's too late in the story.

This also really draws attention to the character's pre-transformation competence, the script never really gets a handle on how good a fighter she is supposed to be. Her skill with various weapons changing from scene-to-scene as the script required it.

However, upon her post-transformation return for the final showdown, she seems to have become almost a superhero (there's definitely a touch of The Crow in her face paint).

And, as with the bulk of superhero movies that follow this arc, it would have been far more interesting if she had been "powered up" from much earlier in the story. Gandalf didn't become Gandalf The White just for the Battle at The Gates of Mordor in Lord Of The Rings.

The fight sequences in Red Sonja are generally okay, but the majority of actual death scenes either happen off-camera, in darkness or hidden some other way. This isn't what the target audience for this genre of movie are looking for.

That being said, I was surprised at how touching and well-done the last moments between Sonja and Draygan were, as I'd been expecting her just to lop his head off.

However, Red Sonja's very final scene, set some time later, is a hilariously unearned attempt (imitating Marion Ravenwood's introduction in Raiders of The Lost Ark) to pry the door open for a sequel.

Don't hold your breath.

Japanese poster for Red Sonja

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (2026)

Picking up from the closing moments of the delightfully gonzo first movie, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come opens with blood-soaked survivor Grace MacCaullay (the ever-superb Samara Weaving) being taken to hospital.

There, she is reunited with her estranged sister, Faith (Kathryn Newton aka the MCU's Cassie Lang, daughter of Ant-Man), but they very quickly discover that the games aren't over, when both are kidnapped to the Danforth Estate, another home for the elite and filthy rich.

There the sisters are to be pawns in a contest for the surviving four families of the Satanic cult Grace faced in the first movie. The prize is now for control of the council of families and thus THE WORLD.

With the same directors - Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett - and writers - Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy - as the original, the transition from one film to the next is seamless.

While Ready or Not 2 may initially give the impression it's simply going to be going over old ground, but with two protagonists and four families of antagonists, it is so much more than that.

Once again hitting the ground running, the 108-minute continuation of the story rockets along with the same ferocity as the first movie, blending in some epic, Grand Guignol violence and dark, often dry, humour.

Supervised by Mister Le Bail's representative, the unflappable and nameless Lawyer (Elijah Wood, who you may know from a little trilogy called The Lord of The Rings), leading the charge for the bad guys are Ursula Danford (Buffy The Vampire Slayer's Sarah Michelle Gellar) and her sadistic twin brother, Titus (Shawn Hatosy).

While all the members of the families, in their own ways, are evil, the psychotic Titus is the most genuinely disturbing. His horrifically savage beating of one of the lead characters being the most difficult scene to watch in a movie filled with exploding bodies and gory slapstick. This exhibition of cold brutality isn't played for laughs or supernatural chills.

Supplementing these powerful performances are a couple of stand-out cameos from big name stars, whose impact on the story far exceeds their amount of screentime.

The developing bond between the feuding sisters is the heart of the film, with the plot twisting and turning around that so that the surviving characters end up somewhere totally unexpected for the grand finale.

There's nice foreshadowing along the way, although you might still be surprised by its implications.

The conclusion is very satisfying, but definitely closes the door on any possible threequels.

However, I wouldn't say no to a Kill Bill: The Whole Blood Affair-style stitching together of 2019's Ready or Not and this year's Ready or Not 2 into a single, 200-minute glorious entity, as - as is joked about at the end - both movies unfold over a handful of consecutive days.

If I had a gripe with the second movie, and it's a silly one, I just find the title is a case of a hat-on-a-hat. Make up your mind, people, call it Ready or Not 2 or Ready or Not: Here I Come. 

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come is just awkward.

Midnight Chronicles (2008)

There is a major flaw in Midnight Chronicles that isn't addressed in the movie (and is only hinted at in passing in the trailer)... this is not a complete story, but part of a series.

Sadly there is no indication of when, if ever, the remainder of the story will be told.

Perhaps it is supposed to be a "set-up" for a roleplaying game campaign (which would be pretty cool if it was) as the movie, made by Fantasy Flight Studios, is based on Fantasy Flight's Midnight setting for Dungeons & Dragons.

The backstory is a clever spin on Lord Of The Rings (and Peter Jackson's trilogy is clearly homaged, in a low-budget way, especially in the establishing exposition sequence): what would a fantasy world be like if the bad guys won?

In Midnight Chronicles, the world of Aryth has fallen under the thrall of the wicked god Izrador, the elves have fled to their forests and the dwarves disappeared underground, leaving mankind to be ruled by Izrador's dark priests, the Legates, and his legions of orcs.

An infamous Legate, Mag Kiln (Charles Hubbell) is on a mission to track down a missing priest, assisted by the annoying, hedonistic Kruce (Sam Landman).

However, they are diverted by acolyte Chuzara (Dawn Brodey) to the town of Blackweir - to investigate why the town's temple still hasn't been completed after a hundred years... and whether attacks by a local brigand known as the Hunter are to blame.

And this is where a second fault with the film begins to reveal itself, a fault tied very heavily into the first, that there is simply too much going on in the story for the audience to keep track of.

Compound that with the surfeit of 'otherworldy' names and characters and it's no wonder the full story couldn't be told in 100 minutes.

There's a "monster" (or is it a force for good?) lurking in the temple, but it's exact nature is never explained, and there are hints of a heroic warrior - who doesn't know his destiny is to be the counterbalance to Mag Kiln's rise to power - but he barely registers in the story and is quite possibly redundant to the plot of this movie.

The film makers clearly accept that they are working on a limited budget and don't try to overstretch their special effects, limiting the non-humans, such as the orcs and elves (dwarves are talked about, but never seen), to pretty decent masks and make-up and the film's CGI effects to attractive backdrops and subtle magical effects.

However, the script is clearly written by a gamer rather than a professional scriptwriter because, as I have said, a lot is set-up that never pays off - which is fine in an RPG because the characters can always go and explore those avenues at a later date, but a film script really needs to be self-contained.

The blurb on the DVD case says the film is:

"...the epic narrative that tells the tale of two legendary characters - one for the cause of good, the other for the cause of evil. This is the story of their rise, their struggle and ultimately their fate, as their destinies become intertwined with that of the world and the dark god that occupies it"

That's a lie... kind of. That's the plot of the whole 'epic' that this is simply the prologue of. And if the series ever gets made, I'd gladly watch it because there's a lot of detail in this world that has the potential for some thrilling storytelling.http://

What we actually get here is the first two episodes (a 'pilot' as it were) for a potential television series that never took off. Given the success of Legend Of The Seeker around the time of this film's release there would definitely have been a market for this, but I suspect that boat has sailed.

Unfortunately I don't think the rest of the story will ever be told because Midnight was a 3.5 edition Dungeons & Dragons setting, from what I can recall, and the gaming world has moved on from there.

Fantasy Flight has turned its attention to Warhammer, Anima and Grimm these days and wasn't supporting Midnight anymore.

Which is a shame, because this movie certainly has potential. The script and the acting certainly aren't Oscar worthy, but the effects don't grate and the setting has the strong verisimilitude of all good game worlds.

So instead of the launch pad for a television series that could have become the role-players' equivalent of Lord Of The Rings (maybe), Midnight Chronicles stands alone as a quirky experiment by a games company that will probably, sadly, fade into gaming lore as time continues to move on.


Back in 2010, over on Facebook, Angus Abranson, then at Cubicle 7, explained:

"I believe that this was made as a pilot to tout around various TV networks. Also Midnight is an IP that FFG own themselves and are quite fond of (they've already used the Midnight setting in one of their Runebound Board Games too) so don't be surprised to see other 'Midnight' related products appear outside of the RPG market at somepoint."

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Anya Taylor-Joy

The announcement this week that the queen of genre flicks, Anya Taylor-Joy has been cast in the upcoming Lord of The Rings spin-off movie, The Hunt For Gollum, as Seren, a Sindar elf, reminded of a piece I wrote on an earlier blog when I "discovered" her.

What makes me particularly proud about the following article, posted on October 6, 2017, under the banner headline Remember This Name..., was that I had never written such an article before, or since.

I had never been so engaged by the collective body of a performer's work (who wasn't already a household name). There was just some rare, indefinable magic about Anya that shone out, shouting "this woman is a star".

The text below, from almost nine years ago, is the exact text (and photograph) from the original article, posted on my earlier, now deceased, blog.

Anya Taylor-Joy

Many young actors cut their teeth on genre roles, particularly low-budget horror parts, before making their names in "more respectable" fields of acting.

But Anya Taylor-Joy is proving to have a gift for genre roles.

The 21-year-old has already had memorable lead roles in Split, Morgan, and, of course, The Witch, and is scheduled to return as Casey Cooke in M Night Shyamalan's Glass (the sequel to Unbreakable and Split) in 2019, after a turn as Illyana Rasputin aka Magik in next year's X-Men: The New Mutants.

None of these are low-budget schlockfests; these are mainstream movies.

Remember her name and where you read it today. Anya Taylor-Joy is a future megastar. I'm calling it now, so in years to come you can tune your wayback machines to this post and say "he was right, you know, he was right!"

For instance, her most recent performance - as Casey, in Split - reminded me of Kacey Rohl's pivotal role as Abigail Hobbs in the greatest TV show ever, Hannibal. Rohl has gone on to carve a niche for herself in genre TV with enduring characters in Arrow, The Magicians and Wayward Pines (the M. Night Shyamalan-produced mystery sci-fi show).

Here's hoping great genre roles continue to drop in the lap of the talented Taylor-Joy and that eventually she might even land a character she can become synonymous with - like Hugh Jackman with Wolverine.

But whatever happens, I just hope she continues making amazing movies!

Black Death (2010)

Fourteenth Century England is in the grip of the bubonic plague and bishop's envoy Ulric (Sean Bean) is leading a band of grizzled mercenaries to investigate rumours of an isolated village that has mysteriously remained untouched by the plague.

Driven by the belief that this 'miracle' is the work of an evil necromancer with the ability to raise the dead, they recruit novice friar Osmund (Eddie Redmayne) to guide them through the marshes that form the final stage of their journey.

However, all  are quite unprepared for what they find in the nameless village.

With strong overtones of Apocalypse Now (and its inspiration Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad), and a sprinkling - because of its powerful religious motivations - of The Wicker Man, Black Death is a flawed gem.

While Bean growls his way through charismatically as the grizzled anti-hero Ulric (a fine addition to a portfolio that embraces Richard Sharpe, Ned Stark and Boromir) and Eddie Redmayne - star of the excellent Medieval drama The Pillars Of The Earth as well as many laudable movie appearances - is great as the conflicted priest, the film has issues with its pacing.

The award-winning Black Death is suitably grim and gritty visually, but misses opportunities on its journey to the village to further explore the horrific, apocalyptic world director Christopher Smith (of Creep and Severance - not that one, the 2006 film - fame) has crafted.

Ulric's party of coin-hungry soldiers are a gloriously dirty, stinking, vicious bunch of veterans, torturers and murderers, but they are also complex individuals rather than just cookie-cutter thugs, even though they are secondary characters on Osmund's journey of self-discovery.

There is a wonderful, unnerving scene when the travellers meet a party of flagellants heading in the opposite direction down river, but we could have done with a few more moments like this before the final act.

The film then features a drawn-out epilogue, detailing the aftermath of the events that take place in the village, which is just a shade too long and overbalances the narrative as it repeats the point it is making a couple of times.

But this doesn't stop Black Death from being a powerful indictment of the 'brainwashing' power of organised religion and the excesses it can drive someone to if they believe 'God' is on their side.

Ultimately, neither the believers nor the non-believers come out of this in a particularly good light, but at least the film raises the issue in the first place.

Those looking for some kind of medieval torture fetish fare will be disappointed. Although not overly gory, Black Death isn't without its moments of blood letting, yet the few instances of torture - or suggested torture - aren't depicted graphically.

Conversely, the one real extended fight scene - a battle between bandits and Ulric's men in the woods - is more akin to a barroom brawl (with swords, maces and whatever-comes-to-hand) than any sort of elegant or stylised swordplay.

Perhaps too much information is relayed to the audience through voice-over and exposition as well (the 'explanation' of what's going on to Osmund, in the misty marshes, is heavy with atmosphere but maybe a bit of an infodump of something we probably could have worked out for ourselves).

It's a pity that the end result of Black Death doesn't quite reach the film's ambitions, because it has the look and mood down perfectly, managing to be psychologically unnerving as well as viscerally exciting and mentally challenging.

Stick That In Your Pipe And Smoke It!

One of my fondest sense-memories of my late father is the smell of his pipe smoke. This has led to me - over the years - making a number of my roleplaying characters, across various genres, pipe smokers as a small homage.

I can now up my game for characters - both player-characters and non-player characters - with Hobree Leafburner's Guide to Pyping, a "pype centric supplement for OSE and the OSR" from Agranak Studios.

As a member of the publisher's Patreon I got the 44-page PDF for free, but you can pick it up via the link here if you're looking to add some cosy details to the verisimilitude of your fantasy gaming world.

It was the passion of Agranak Studios' DM Wisdom aka Brent Douglas Wisdom, host of his own excellent YouTube channel, for Dragonbane that finally persuaded me to invest in that system. 

Although Hobree Leafburner's Guide to Pyping isn't actually written for Dragonbane, it's mostly system-agnostic flavour text, random tables, location and item descriptions etc making it easily adaptable to any old school fantasy system and setting.

This has been a pet project for DM Wisdom - a pipe smoker himself - over the last few years. Upon launching it to his mailing list this week, he said: "This is a supplement near and dear to my heart and I hope it helps to fill your world with whimsy."

The book's DriveThruRPG listing has this overview:

"Hobree Leafburner's Guide to Pyping is an Old School Essentials-compatible supplement that expands the role of pipes, pipeleaf, smoke magic, and smoking culture within fantasy roleplaying games. Inspired by classic fantasy literature, cozy tavern scenes, wandering wizards, and halfling traditions, this book provides everything needed to make pyping a meaningful part of your campaign world."

The Guide to Pyping also makes a wonderful companion piece to one of the quirkier books in my small Tolkien collection: namely Mark Irwin's Pipe Smoking In Middle Earth, which examines the importance of pipes, tobaccos, and pipe smokers in JRR Tolkien's oeuvre.

Know Me, Know My Shelves

Works of, or inspired by, George RR Martin, JRR Tolkien and Jim Henson

Despite the heat wave plaguing our little corner of the world this week, I think I've finished organising my wonderful new bookshelves (put together for me by Rachel's dad last year).

As they are, the shelves are a pretty decent encapsulation of the inside of my brain, focussing on my favourite authors and favourite themes.

From Westeros to the World of Mortal Engines, via the Hyborian Age and Mega-City One, right through to the Planet of The Apes and the Wild West, this is a guided tour of my psyche and my primary, literary gaming inspirations.

Of course, these are not my only book shelves in the house, but are my most recently built and filled.

Pretty sure, now, there's no more room for any more shelves... although there's always room for more books.

Philip Reeve

Conan The Barbarian

Robert E Howard

HP Lovecraft and The Cthulhu Mythos

Westerns - there are more Western paperbacks in another cupboard

Judge Dredd & 2000AD (plus a sneaky little RPG that has yet to find a home)

Planet of The Apes

The Importance of Michael Moorcock to RPG History

In preparation for the release of its Classic Era of Elric roleplaying game (compatible with Dungeon Crawl Classics and Dungeons & Dragons 5e), Goodman Games has published a nice overview of Michael Moorcock's importance in the world of sword and sorcery fiction, as well as his influence on the fantasy roleplaying game oeuvre.

You can read the article about Elric's creator here.

Goodman Games' The Classic Era of Elric roleplaying game (yeah, I can't get my head round that name yet. I'm wondering if it's just a placeholder) will be the subject of a crowdfunding campaign on BackerKit next year and you can sign up to be alerted when that launches here.

Moorcock is the youngest and only living author mentioned in Gary Gygax's famous Appendix N list of inspirational authors for Dungeons & Dragons players and gamesmasters, from the 1979 Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide.

Below you will find a 2019 interview with Michael Moorcock from the Appendix N Book Club podcast, in which the forthright author shares his views on gaming companies using his creations, racism in the works of Lovecraft and Agatha Christie, why he prefers the adventures of Conan to Lord Of The Rings, the birth and evolution of Elric (not an elf!), the benefits of comic book adaptations, writing Hawkmoon books in three days, The Multiverse and destroying universes, Dan Dare's optimistic future, activism, feminism, Brexit... and a plug for his most recent music album!

You can download the podcast episode here via iTunes or listen to it here:

More Blood and Souls For My Lord Arioch!

Michael Moorcock's Elric may not have been my (post-Tolkien) introduction to the sword-and-sorcery genre (that honour rests with Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and The Gray Mouser), it was Moorcock's work that truly shaped my taste in reading.

I haven't read any Leiber in an age, but I often revisit the twisted, hallucinogenic, weird fantasy adventures of Elric of Melniboné and The Young Kingdoms.

There's something about the succinctness of Moorcock's early tales of Elric and his soul-devouring sword Stormbringer that I've always found more enchanting than the doorstop tomes so prevalent today.

It was after years of reading Moorcock that I instituted my "Moorcock Rule" (more of a guideline)  that stated that a book REALLY had to work hard to justify itself if it ran longer than 150-200 pages. 

That said, I've never used the Young Kingdoms - nor any of the trappings of Elric's adventures (even Stormbringer, itself) - in my own roleplaying games. 

I don't own a copy of Chaosium's Stormbringer/Elric of Melniboné RPGs (1981 - 2010). I've looked into it in the last couple of decades but those books generally command silly money on the secondary market.

However, in recent weeks, both Goodman Games and Free League have announced they will be releasing games based on this IP next year (after crowdfunding campaigns).

Goodman Games is planning two different iterations: one using Dungeons & Dragons 5e and one using Dungeon Crawl Classics. While I feel the latter system is probably more suited to emulating the demon-fuelled magic of Elric's world, neither of these systems really tickle my fancy at the moment.

However, my interest is well-and-truly piqued by Free League's offering, Legends of Stormbringer, which will run on the Dragonbane engine. 

I know I keep saying I'm out of the buying new games side of the hobby, but to quote Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Part III:

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in."

Dragonbane isn't a game I'm particularly familiar with, except from second hand accounts which are a generally overwhelmingly positive... with a few minor niggles about some of the mechanics.

A translated version of Drakar och Demoner, a game system played in Scandinavia since 1982, Dragonbane's definitely been at the top of my "must check out the starter set" list since it was first released in English in 2023.

This recent announcement might be the nudge I "needed" to pull the trigger on yet another game that I may - or may not - run for the Tuesday Knights.

You can read about Free League's forthcoming Stormbringer offering (and a bit about Dragonbane) here.