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It’s not typical to see a movie made after a roleplaying game. There are some, and as I said, they are best enjoyed with a bunch of friends and possibly alcohol. And of course, we remember the execrable Dungeons & Dragons. There is a sequel, and there are more rumours of one, plus the Dragonlance cartoon and that sci-fi flick from last winter I tore into last Mutant Chronicles.
So now we have Midnight Chronicles, which is based on D20’s setting Midnight which Fantasy Flight Games produced. This is your classic Dungeons and Dragons setting except that, during the time the free peoples of the West were fighting against Mordor, Sauron viciously defeated them and now rules the entire world. Personally, aside from the DVD, I don’t own any Midnight products or have read any.
The movie was originally made on a very small budget and it is believed that the game company itself funded the production. Actually, the European distributor is one Boll Kino Beteiligungs GmbH and this “Boll” stands for exactly what you would fear it does. The DVD goes as far as having a trailer for In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale. If we set the expectations, this does set them pretty nicely.
The plot of the film is quite straightforward. There is a township, Blackweir, located in Frontiers of the Western world. A legate which is a kind of cleric to the Dark Lord Izrador, if my guesses are right was dispatched here to dedicate a temple of Izrador and now he is absent. There is another legate. He is Mag Kiln, the indisputable hero, who has been tasked to locate this legate. In this instance, “the indisputable hero” refers to a textbook Lawful Evil son of a bitch; clad in black robes, bald with a head, and possessing an unhealthily attired skeletal face. Though, Charlie Hubbell whom you probably do not know, though you may have watched the short film called “Fear of Girls” is able to portray this character in the way that is required by the script. One can reasonably anticipate him to be intense and grave given that he looks the part. He is joined by a skit who I am not sure about his name, but I think it is Kruce. Alas, the DVD lacks subtitles, and there seems to be a disagreement among the actors as to the pronunciation of various names. That skit sidekick is quite humorous. He reminds me of Malak, Conan the Destroyer’s thief, but in this case, this is how the character ought to have been presented.
At Blackweir, third in line to the scene is Chuzara, the female sidekick who further complicates things with the mayor’s constant scheming, folklore curses, and Morrec, the missing legate turned freedom fighter who runs the forest rebels. Other characters include a failing Hugo Weaving impersonator, an ordinary farm boy turned hero, and a few others.
To my surprise, their acting is for the most part, quite acceptable. While I’m not claiming them to be Olivier Laurence-level actors, the audience seemed to be in far less pain than expected while watching it. I did, however, expect a lot more from Chuzara, who from what I have observed, appears to have one single expression, and elf characters fall incredibly flat without proper actors.
The film suffers from issues within the plot. The flow of the movie seems to change too much as it progresses and many parts go without action, furthermore, when it does, the second half before the climax is somewhat halted. It’s clear that the Midnight Chronicles has no qualms about preparation for a sequel which in its essence, solely signifies a prequel to a larger TV series. Most of the story is left open to interpretation, there also lies characters that seem to meander without a clear motive. The farm boy turned hero character serves this purpose and unfortunately is also a somewhat unreasonable stereotype.
Apart from the storyline, I could not help but cringe at some aspects of the creative aesthetic. The characters’ cogs and outfits all seem too new for the post-apocalyptic world they are set in. They appear as if they have not been used by people who spent weeks on the move or even resided in the forest or lived in a dirty city. While certain productions, like Conan the Barbarian and Lord of the Rings, do not have this issue because of the positive immersion created within the viewer, a negative one occurs with others. Acquiring some realistic wear and tear on that gear should not be too expensive, especially in comparison to how much it would improve the overall look of the movie.
As much as I have tried, I cannot say that I have enjoyed Midnight Chronicles. Even with my optimism, I still find myself unimpressed. There is not much I can jest about it either as it is borderline mediocre, and it is unable to reach its extremes. It’s just somehow less than the sum of its parts. I am disappointed.
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