What is it all about, then?
Normally I would break a review into a few structured categories, and talk about each aspect of a movie. Sadly, Mazes & Monsters does not deserve such treatment, so we'll adress the movie here entirely. The movie revolves around a young Tom Hanks in the guide of 'Robbie Wheeling', a pretty smart kid going to college as growing kids do. We quickly find out that he flunked out of school however, because apparently he played too much Mazes & Monsters. Has anyone caught this name yet? Yes, it is indeed the most poorly veiled jab at Dungeons & Dragons ever, and the movies' working title actually went by the name of Dungeons & Dragons until they figured they might get sued to pieces. Smart decision, among a bucketload of bad ones.
That is not all that's gone wrong in Robbie's life, however. His brother Hall ran away when he was X years younger, and decided to never call or write, but it's suggested he might've gone to New York. He starts at a new school, where he makes friends with (and extremely awkwardly I might add) three supposed roleplayers who're into the same game as him. Apparently this make-believe version of D&D has carry-over characters, because they're all excited to hear his old character is conviniently the same level as they are. They press-gang Robbie into joining their group, and Robbie joins to get with the girl in the group.
He does. By way of montage. I am somewhat thankful of this fact, because every scene with Robbie and 'Kate', his new girlfriend, is super-awkward, tense in a bad way, and bumbles forward like two men who had their wives go to the bathroom in the middle of a foursome. One of their friends is suicidal, we find out, and in a particular moment of lonesome, walks to kill himself in a set of caverns that lie conviniently outside campus. He notes however, that these caves, while super dangerous, would be great to frighten your friends to shit so they won't hang out with you anymore.
So cut to another crappy make-believe session of D&D.. I mean M&M. This is the actual conversation.
"Maze Controller"(Read with feigned dramatic voice): Between you and the undead is a large chasm that stretches very wide and deep. At the very bottom there is something glittering, perhaps the magic treasure of Genarc, or MAYBE A TRAP.
Suicidal Guy: I jump into the chasm to get the treasure. What kinda treasure is it?
"Maze Controller"(Read with awkward surprise): IT'SH A TRAP. Large gem-encrusted spikes. You are impaled and die.
The writing astounds me. It's as if they copied it straight from a D&D game! Or maybe not. So the guy dies and quickly recovers from this apparently super-serious event, I mean, it's not like he can just make a new character, right? No, instead he suggests they start live action roleplaying instead, and that they do it in these mega-dangerous caves outside campus where apparently a whole bunch of kids got lost. Go figure they all instantly agree.
So, they go to their little pretend adventure, which is hilariously more great than anything else in the movie, and with only a skeleton with a flashlight in it's mouth, and a hallucination to help their cave venture on, that's saying alot. Robbie has a psychotic episode, because apparently he has schizophrenia amongst other things, and becomes deeply affirmed in the idea that he is the 'M&M Holy Man' (yellow coating) that he plays in the game. This is followed by a tunnel dream where he's told he needs to become one with the great Hall, and seek the Two Towers to fulfill his quest and gain a level. Why he can't just get xp, I don't know. So, Hall is obviously his brother and apparently his god too, and Robbie becomes more obsessed, still believing he is a character from a game. He decides the Twin Towers in New York is what it's all about, and that jumping off it is a great idea. It is, we'd not have to suffer this movie if he did.
So his friends call the cops on his ass like any nice, caring friends, and then go to visit him at his parents house to find he's still batshit crazy. Like the caring friends they are, they feed his addiction one last time by playing M&M with him.
What I haven't included in this walkthrough is the horrible and obvious anti-roleplaying propaganda, because I thought it'd be less then tactful. The entire movie is littered with lines like "Ever since you started playing that game you haven't done well for yourself." and "The worst horrors come from inside our mind's imagination." I wouldn't mind it if the characters didn't almost look at the camera while delivering them.
The acting is not even passably decent. Delivery is awkward, and had I not known who Tom Hanks was, I wouldn't have lost as much respect for the man. Acting classes obviously came later in his career. Lines are stale and boring, the plot is a festering bag of depression, and they can't even get the mockery of D&D right. What they describe doesn't make you think of a roleplaying game. It sounds more like a video game than anything, and if it was, it would suck. Did I forget anything? Oh yes. It's boring.
If you download this movie, delete it from your seedlist so you don't spread the shit around.
Rating
SRM Score: 18%
Calculation: -80% for shittyness, -2% for lack of ninja.
SRM.
SRM Score: 18%
Calculation: -80% for shittyness, -2% for lack of ninja.
SRM.
