For those who do not know, WotDG is the 2006 sequel to the flaming train wreck of the 2000 Dungeons and Dragon's movie. The sequel fails to serve as an engaging action-adventure or sword-and-sorcery flick, but can serves as a mediocre training film for D&D.

In short the plot is this; a century has passed since the events of the first movie and the villain's henchmen from the first movie, Damodar, is still around seeking power and revenge. He gains control of McGuffin that allows him to awaken a sleeping undead dragon god that will burninate the world if that happens. The heroes set out to stop Damodar.

Mark Dymond plays Berek, the fighter and leader of the party and Clemency Burton-Hill plays Melora, Berek's wife and a mage. Both were adequate. Tim Stern gives a solid performance as Nim the rogue, who apparently also possesses levels the Surly prestige class. Bruce Payne plays returning villain Damodar with less venom than he possessed in the last movie but his performance is still the highlight of this one.

Less interesting were the others performers. Ellie Chidzey plays the pretty and fragile looking barbarian Lux mostly by looking defiant and striking poses. Steven Elder's performance as Dorian the cleric left me (and many others - himself included) cold. Lucy Gaskell phoned it in as Ormaline the elf and Roy Marsden pops his eyes as the archmage Oberon.

The special effects are pedestrian and fail to rise even to the levels achieved by even Babylon 5, a TV shows from several years ago. This is also true for sets, most costumes and all of the make up on various characters. Speaking of make up, while the character of Damodar has returned, he has apparently lost his blue lipstick. The poor effects put to use to embody the lich made me a sad, sad boy.

The script ranges from poor to mediocre. There are a few jokes and times of snappy dialogue, but more often characters are somber and speaking like they are explaining out-of-character elements while in character. The scene where Burton-Hill explains to Dymond the difference between arcane magic and divine magic is one example. Generally, the story and everyone and everything in it seem rather joyless.

For some reason, digital effects were used to mute the colors in the movie. This becomes almost laughably evident at one point where the colors are not muted around one of the heroes in the distance so as to draw attention to the hero. The over all effect was to strip even more life from the production.

When everything seems to be off, at least a little if not a lot, you have to look to who is piloting the boat. This movie, like the first D&D movie, fails largely because of the directing. In this case, this is the sixth movie by Gerry Lively. Pardon the pun, but it is not very lively production. The special effects are mediocre, the performances are usually just adequate and the coloring is deliberately poor.

If WotDG fails to engage action-adventure or sword-and-sorcery flick, what purpose can it serve? It can serve as a training film for not easily bored children to introduce them to all the basic concepts of D&D; this is a fighter, that is a mage, this is what a rogue does, etc.

WotDG felt a great deal like a Full Moon studios production that lost all of its color and energy. Say what you will about movies like Puppet Master, Subspecies and Castle Freak, they are at least full of color and usually possess a kind of frenetic energy which makes them lively.

There is a commentary by Wizards of the Coast staff members who are playing the characters of Lidda, Kursk and Jozan. This is probably better than the movie, and Kursk gets the best jokes.

In the end, the movie fails to entertain and serves only as a kind of lifeless training video for D&D. If you want to watch a good D&D movie, watch 13th Warrior, Excalibur, Conan the Barbarian, Kingdom of Heaven, Dragonslayer, Lady Hawk, the Princess Bride, Record of the Lodoss War, Holy Grail or course, Lord of the Rings.

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