Knights of Badassdom

In 2011, I saw a trailer that immediately grabbed my attention - Knights of Badassdom. It had a kick-ass title and the trailer seemed to promise a tale similar to Evil Dead but with LARPing. It had everything a fun-loving nerd could ask for: drugs; whiskey; evil book of the dead; and Peter Dinklage in medieval cosplay.

Perhaps anticipation was the biggest factor that killed this movie. After 3 years of broken promises about its release, I was expecting more. What we are left with is a movie that didn't live up to its potential, didn't utilize its impressive cast and didn't deliver any clever or witty dialog.

The main premise is that Joe (Ryan Kwanten from The 6 pack red neck from True Blood ) is dumped by his stuck-up girlfriend Beth (Margarita Levieva). His roommates Hung (Peter Dinklage breakout stars of HBO's Game of Thrones) and Eric (Steve Zahn, once starred alongside Matthew Mcconaughey) promptly pass him a bottle of whiskey and a bong to help nurse his heartbreak. He awakens in full armor at a campsite that medieval reenactors have descended upon for a cosplay extravaganza. While chanting magical poppycock during a wizard ritual, Eric unwittingly summons a demon that takes the shape of Beth and snacks on the hearts of unsuspecting players.

The plot is flat and the characters have very little depth that I ended up creating my own movie while Knights of Badassdom played in the background. Take out John Malkovich from the movie Being John Malkovich and add William Shatner instead. I did have a problem in the second half where I decided that Shatner need to be a shaman because I decided to pay attention to  Knights of Badassdom again and remembered that William Shatner played a Shaman in WOW commercial once. Now I think about it, I would have prefered to watcher William Shatner play WOW for and hour and half instead.

My main problem was that during the movie I just found myself asking too many question about the characters motivations. Why were the redneck paintballers so against the LARPers ? because I don't know. Just seemed like the writer decided to use the cultural shorthand that nerds will always be prosecuted by jocks. Also the editing was dreadful, I rarely notice how a movie is edited. At one point the characters are standing around in daylight then the very next scene its night time.  Honestly there so much about this movie that annoyed me. I cant be bothered writing that long list down. This movie should have been a treat for anybody who's loves playing video games or geek culture. It tried to combine all things geeky to create an cult film and failed. Do yourself a favour and watch the trailer only. Also wonder at the greatest that is William Shatner talking about being a Shaman in WOW.

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1 out of 5 the knights of disappointment and waffles