Knights of Badassdom (2013)

Number Rolled: 10

Movie Name/Year: Knights of Badassdom (2013)

Genre: Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Length: 85 minutes

Rating: R

Affiliated Companies: IndieVest Pictures, North by Northwest Entertainment

Executive Producer: Rich Cowan, Mike Elizalde, Daniel J. Heffner, Ketura Kestin, Rizwan Virk

Director: Joe Lynch

Writer: Kevin Dreyfuss, Matt Wall

Actors: D.R. Anderson, W. Earl Brown, Michael Carpenter, Kevin Connell, Sean Cook, Peter Dinklage, Khanh Doan, Michael Gladis, Summer Glau, Basil Harris, Brett Gipson, Tom Hopper, Ryan Kwanten, Margarita Levieva, Joshua Malina, Brendan McCreary, Brandon Petty, Brian Posehn, Danny Pudi, Jose Rufino, Jimmi Simpson, Kim Stodel, Douglas Tait, Joshua Aaron Van Veen, Steve Zahn

Joe is having a rough day. He gets in trouble at work and then his girlfriend breaks up with him. Luckily, he lives with his best friend, Eric. There’s no way Eric is going to allow Joe to mope the entire weekend. Through peer pressure, and other means, Eric gets Joe to join him on a delightful weekend of LARPing.

If you don’t know what LARP is, it stands for Live-Action Role-Play. It takes table-top role-playing games, throws the players in costume and transports them to a place where thrown bean bags are spells and foam swords act like steel.

If you don’t know what role play is… what’s wrong with you? Get on that. Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, Vampire: the Masquerade, Exalted. Look up those keywords and enjoy.

I digress.

This B-movie does everything really well, provided you go into it knowing you’re about to see a B-movie. Don’t let the familiar names of Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones, X-Men: Days Of Future Past, Penelope), Summer Glau (Firefly, Serenity, Arrow) and Ryan Kwanten (True Blood, Not Suitable For Children, Dead Silence) fool you. This IS a B-movie.

A PERFECT B-movie.

That’s right; I used the “P” word. Get your minds out of the gutter, you know what I meant.

I believe this movie was perfect. It was silly and violent and hilarious and I could not look away. It’s everything a good B-movie should be with much better acting. You can absolutely tell that the actors had one hell of a time filming. It’s always easy to get into a story when the actors are too.

Now, as perfect as I believe this movie was, I will acknowledge that it is not for everyone. If you take horror movies too seriously, this is not for you. If you can’t be sympathetic to a bunch of truly nerdy LARPers, this is not for you. If you just plain don’t like fantasy, this is probably not for you.

However, if you’re interested in some geeky, ridiculous, not-so-horror-horror with a twinge a death metal and pinch of epicness – this is definitely for you.

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – 55%

Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 39%

Netflix’s Prediction for Me – 5/5

Trust-the-Dice Score – 5/5

Movie Trailer: