Chanse’s ProFan Review: Knights of Badassdom
Several years ago I watched a trailer for a comedy about a LARP-gone-wrong (LARP is Live Action Role Playing, for those who aren’t familiar), directed by Joe Lynch (Wrong Turn 2), and starring Ryan Kwanten (True Blood), Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones), Steve Zahn (Treme), and Summer Glau (Firefly). And I was smitten. Not a LARPer myself, but an active tabletop RPG player, I immediately added a life goal to see this film. And so, I waited…
And waited…
And waited…
Filmed in 2010, the movie finally hit theaters last night, and along with some friends, and more LARPers than I have ever seen in one place, I was lucky enough to get to preview what I’d waited so long for.
And I was not disappointed.
The film’s plot is pretty stock. Guy (Kwanten) gets dumped, guy’s friends (Dinklage and Zahn) try to cheer him up by getting him hammered and taking him to a LARP event. Somebody innocently uses an ancient grimoire of spells as a prop in a quest, an “actual” demon succubus from hell is summoned, and hijinks ensue. The laughs are a little one-note, and the special-effects, especially the CGI, are largely subpar. That said, it’s a B-movie at heart, so the effects can be somewhat forgiven, and even if they were the same jokes over and over, I found myself still laughing at them each time.
Much is being made around the internets of the fact that, pre-release, the film was re-cut from the director’s original version, supposedly to widen audience appeal. I’ve seen several reviewers getting up in arms about how it doesn’t present an accurate view of LARPing. I don’t know what these folks were expecting, but I don’t recall this flick ever being marketed as a documentary. Also, if a group was ever going to be critical of it, it would be the group I watched with, over half of whom were LARPers in costume. All I heard throughout the film was laughter and cheering from all the four winds. Though I am now terribly interested in eventually seeing the director’s original cut, I can’t imagine that it could venture too far from the end result, which was a silly romp through the woods with some fairly humorous character acting.
My final word? Watch this movie.
