Rent Knights of Badassdom (2013)

I Did Not Larp that Much.....see what I did there. - Knights of Badassdom review by Strovey

As this film unfolded I immediately thought that the makers saw or were involved with ‘Role Models’. The final third of that film takes place entirely at a LARP event. They must have thought expanding the fun and idea of ‘nerds made good’ would be a great idea for a full movie. Truthfully, it is a great idea for a movie, unfortunately somewhere between the planning and the execution something got lost. I have read that the director's vision or version was much chopped about in post-production, unfortunate, but we who view the film can only judge on what we see, not what we’d like to see.

The cast is strong, I personally have never seen Ryan Kwanten before but he is well-known for a certain demographic and Dinklage, Zahn, Pudi and Simpson bring their own cache to the production so all good. Summer Glau, I have not seen her in anything since Serenity, and Margarita Levieva are the only female cast of any note, are easy on the eye and do as much as they can within the limitations of the writing.

The story itself is actually horror-film-standard. Unbeatable demon/monster accidentally revived/summoned by helpless fools and the same helpless fools have to overcome the seemingly insurmountable evil. Much blood and limb lopping off ensues and a few ‘heroes’ fall by the wayside but the main couple overcomes the odds, get it on and live a happy post-credit life.

Bearing this thought in mind it would seem to be really important that the process of setting up the characters and story is greater than the actual story. The Knights of Badassdom fails on this. It definitely did with me because during the running time my attention was wandering, so much so I lost a few plot points and never resolved how certain things happened. Never a good sign.

The biggest roadblock has to be are you interested in LARPing, Dungeons and Dragons, fantasy that sort of thing? If not then I have to say thirty percent of the story is probably diminished. Perhaps unfairly but if you watch a sports film and a sport you have literally no interest in, it better be really well made and captivating otherwise they lose you.

Further to this the tone was a bit hit-and-miss. It seemed to be a slapdash look at the wacky world of LARPing and then showing how these much-maligned people were actually okay and looked out for their friends. Then we get heads coming off, innocent people, who are not even into LARPing having their throats cut and beating hearts ripped out. You can juxtapose gore with humour, it needs a bit of skill, I’m looking at you American Werewolf in London, but in my experience, mostly the target in this shooting range is missed more than hit generally.

Reading some reviews after the film had concluded there were some nods to real role-playing that were clever and funny but it is a complete miss if you have no idea what they are.

Negative opinion I am afraid and I do not like giving these when I can avoid it but The Knights of Badassdom really feels like a film that was a good idea and then lost focus, stumbled around in the woods for a while and then fell asleep.

It could have been better, so much better, I am sure.