I felt deeply cynical going into this movie after The Super Mario Movie, an enterprise so deeply rooted in its inherent commercialism.

I am pleased to report that I had a good time!

The word that comes to mind — no pun intended, I promise — is gamesmanship. Every single actor in this role seems like they are having a good time and not above the entire enterprise.

There are lot of reasonable criticisms you can make of this movie. Characters are paper-thin cliches; the plotting (as one might expect from a D&D campaign) is fairly inane and holds up to little scrutiny; the emotional moments feel unearned (besides perhaps the final one, which was fairly heavily telegraphed from the opening scene.) Nothing about this movie was surprising.

But it was a good time. It felt like a campaign, not a commercial.

★★★