Dungeons & Dragons (2000)

This film follows the exploits of a couple of theives, Ridley (Justin Whalin) and Snails (Marlon Wayans) as they attempt to help a young mage, Marine (Zoe McLellan), find a powerful magical relic and clear their names of the murder they have been falsely accused of. They are pursued by the evil Damodar (Bruce Payne), who is the minion of the even more evil, wizard Profion (Jeremy Irons). Along the way, a dwarf and an elf join the group.
Our hero Ridley, finds the artifact only to have it stolen and used by Profion to control the (presumably) evil red dragons in his attempt to overthrow the Empress Savina (Thora Birch).
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IMDB.com has this movie with a rating of 3.6 out of 10. That seems about right. I had high hopes, because I'm naive like that. But come on, when you see Jeremy Irons name on a project, you think that it might be, you know, at least good. But Irons overacts, to put it politely. But, but, that is not necessarily bad - if he had gone just a little bit further, he would have hit the level of camp I normally see from Bruce Campbell. Thora Birch, also well-known for being a good actor, took the role super-seriously. If she had come at with the same, er, mock-gusto that Irons did, this film would have been geratly approved. Whalin and Wayans, not two of the greatest actors, but they're passable and actually don't disappoint in this movie. The only real gem, and this is because I'm a nerd, is seeing Tom Baker as the Elven Elder who heals Ridley. Cool.
The real failing of this movie comes in how it handles D&D. I guess the biggest disappointment was that it used the at the time brand new third edition rules / setting. Meh. This just mixes up all kinds of stuff and allows for a lot of non-traditional races to be present, like the dragon-men and orcs everywhere. The second big snafu was the handling of the beasties, in particular the beholders and the dragons. The beholders were portrayed as guard dogs. Ya, they looked cool, but they are following around gruops of low level fighters above ground and only roar - never cast a single spell. Speaking of no spells, the dragons were handled as flying, fire-breathing steeds. Sure, they can do that, but they can do so much more, like you know, talk, use magic, especially the dragons portrayed which were gaggles of reds and golds, two of the most magical of dragonkind.
I've already wasted too much of my tome on this...