#according to the wiki the reason Doric can wildshape into an owlbear is because she doesn't believe it's a monstrosity

[dude1818]

Saw the D&D movie this afternoon. First time I've been to the theater since Detective Pikachu, I think, which is somewhat appropriate (Justice Smith was again fantastic)

It was a pretty decent movie. The main plot (a heist, the core competency of the game) was solid, with a nice amount of twists and turns. The secret bad guy didn't get much development beyond evil for evil's sake, but the rest of the characters felt like they had good depth. There was a chance for them to turn the found family at the end into forced romantic pairings, and I'm glad they respected the characters' histories and didn't do that

Visually, it was hit or miss. I liked that they used practical effects for the "exotic" humanoid races, and they looked terrible in the best way. (The aarakocra looked like a guy in a chicken suit and I loved it.) The CGI for the spells and monsters sometimes worked and sometimes looked terrible. The displacer beast was incredible, though

Unfortunately the movie suffered from the Marvelification of modern cinema. It felt a lot like a knock-off Avengers movie. The characters spoke almost entirely in quips (but when they didn't, the dialogue was really good and could still be funny). A lot of the visual gags felt recycled from the MCU; Doric taking down the boss was shot-for-shot the Hulk vs Loki scene at the end of the Avengers. That was disappointing, but not surprising given what else WotC is doing. gestures broadly at the recent Phyrexian arc

People were expecting this movie to be terrible at first, and it's not that bad. It was legitimately cool recognizing aspects of the game during the story (the spells, the monsters, the stupid floor tile puzzle). I just wish it was a little more earnest and wasn't trying to ape Marvel so much