Dragonlance(2008) Movie Review

Well the much anticipated release of Dragonlance – Dragons of Autumn Twilight was On Jan 15th. I have finally had a chance to see it. Here is my review of the film (no spoilers).

Casting – The major members of the party are the only ones that I will be rating.

Michael Rosenbaum – Tanthalas ‘Tanis’ Half-Elven (voice) Rating – 3/5
Kiefer Sutherland – Raistlin Majere (voice) – Rating 5/5
Lucy Lawless – Goldmoon (voice) – Rating 4/5
Fred Tatasciore – Flint Fireforge / Fewmaster Toede (voice) Flint Rating 1/5 Fewmaster Rating 4/5
Michelle Trachtenberg – Tika (voice) – Rating 3/5
Rino Romano – Caramon Majere (voice) – Rating 0/5 WTF Someone had a brain fart here.
Jason Marsden – Tasslehoff Burrfoot (voice) – Rating 3/5
Neil Ross – Fizban The Fabulous (voice) – Rating 2/5
Marc Worden – Sturm Brightblade (voice) – Rating 2/5
Phil LaMarr – Riverwind / Gilthanas (voice) – Rating 3/5

The Good

Finally there is a release of a movie based on a book that kept so true to the story. The unfortunate thing with this movie is that the rest of the production did not live up to the potential of the story. Here are the reasons for the previous statement.

The Bad

  1. Poor blend of 3D and traditional animation styles. This is a tricky method of producing a film and this one was just not done right. The stylized characters did not match the CG Draconians and Dragons in the film.
  2. Awkward animation, very jerky and not fluid. With todays technology including motion-capture and photo realistic rendering It’s disappointing that a story with such potential ended up looking the way this production did. It looked like animation from the 80’s reminiscent of the original LOTR Cartoon.
  3. Poor camera work and angles. This stems back to the poor blend of 2D and 3D animation techniques. With 3D techniques there is no limit to the work with the camera. Why this production did not make use of the available technology today is beyond me.
  4. Poor selection of music for the score, not much else I can say about that.
  5. Acting, with the list of actors in the movie I would have expected better voice acting. It seemed like the actors had no emotional bond with the characters. Very much like reading from a script and not living the part.

Overall I have to fail this movie considering the era of its release. If released in the 80’s this movie might have been acceptable but as an animator and artist myself I am extremely disappointed in the production quality of the film. I was hoping for so much more 🙁

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  1. MonolithTMA January 20, 2008
  2. admin January 20, 2008
  3. MonolithTMA January 20, 2008
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  5. MonolithTMA January 20, 2008
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  7. MonolithTMA January 20, 2008
  8. Marty June 3, 2008

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