5 x 5 Movie review: Mythica

1. So, if I summarized a story something like a cleric and a magic-user meet in adventurer's tavern in a vaguely medieval setting; joined by a fighter and a thief, they go on a quest to rescue a kidnapped priestess and retrieve a sacred object from a band of orcs and an ogre, you'd probably guess that I was talking about a archetypal Dungeons and Dragons adventure. Well, that's actually a summary of the movie Mythica: A Quest for Heroes, but you'd still be correct, because the movie is really just one session in a five-movie-long D&D campaign.

Fighter, magic-user, thief, cleric... duh

2. As Wonder Wife commented while we were watching, you could almost call the dice rolls as the action in this film progressed, it was such a parallel to gameplay. A little backstory, get the party together, the thief has a stealth encounter, the fighter draws the aggro in combat and the cleric heals him - I mean, seriously, the big guy kept putting himself in harm's way to save the party and going down, and I kept thinking, yeah, he's got the HP. The climactic battle has the party caught in a cave between giant spiders and the ogre - pretty good DMing there.

3. Which is not to say the movie doesn't stand on its own merits. I don't want to sell it short: for an  indie fantasy film, it's pretty engaging. That the leader of the group is a young woman is a nice change, and the movie hints at a darkness within her (related to the nature of magic in the world) that I am sure will be explored later on. The characters have a little bit of wiggle room within their stereotypes as well; this is the set-up film for the franchise, so I will expect some growth and change there as well. There is a bad guy that I am sure will return, and an enigmatic elder wizard (a cameo by Kevin Sorbo, the film's "star power") who is sure to have a bigger role in the future. And if the  CGI is a little cheesy, well, that just adds to the charm - and you try doing high fantasy on tight budget!

4. Perhaps that tight budget actually added to the appeal of the movie for me: without huge CGI effects, there's no world-threatening, mind-boggling, set piece with a cast of thousands. There's just four adventurers fighting one monster. But they are four adventurers that are kinda fun to watch, and who you're staring to care a little about, and that beats the heck out of any planet-smashing for me.

5. I did a little research on the creators and they have the expected cred - not just in RPGs, but with other fantasy and mythology as well. Anne Black, the writer/director, includes in her credits The Crown and the Dragon, Dawn of the Dragonslayer, Orcs!, and Age of the Dragons - that last a retelling of Moby Dick with steampunk dragon hunters and which I most def want to see now. I think I may have discovered a new well from which to draw.