Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Reefer Madness For The Roleplaying Generation, November 3, 2005
This 1982 made-for-tv movie was made during the period when D&D started to get attention and is a delightful expoitation cheesefest made by folks who have NO idea what the heck the game or the people who play it are about. Tom Hanks is great in an early role as a gamer gone over the edge of reality. Yes, this movie is stupid and insulting to folks who enjoy roleplaying games, but it is a FUN kind of stupid and worth a look when you and your friends have "bad movie night" at your house. It is rather fun to see gaming exploited in a cautionary tale that makes it look like the next great plaugue that will assasinate America's youth. Worse than crack you know. Recommended.
|
|
|
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A time capsule of idiocy, for sure, but not much else..., January 10, 2007
On August 15, 1979, a troubled child prodigy named James Egbert slipped into the steam tunnels beneath Michigan State University with a pocket full of 'ludes. And lo, an urban legend was born. You see, James had occasionally played Dungeons & Dragons some time before enrolling at Michigan, and his oblivious parents along with a news media hungry for scandal latched on to the idea that the fantasy world of role playing had driven him to suicide. The reality was Egbert wasn't dead, or even lost in the tunnels, but hiding at various locations in fear of his folks. The truth rarely matters in such circumstances, though, does it? Soon word of other suicides by teenagers who played D&D began popping up like dandelions in April, and a new hysteria had gripped America. Anti-gaming advocacy groups were formed. Chick tracts were published. The makers of the game even began to change some of their manuals to avoid controversy. And just before the madness peaked (around 1983), Rona Jaffe published a fictionalized warning of the sinister power of RPGs, "Mazes and Monsters", based loosely on James Egbert's story. This film was a television movie adapted from the novel, and is notable today mostly for starring a young Tom Hanks.
Now, before I get started, I'm not a gamer. I've never played an RPG in my life to be honest. However, I know how the 'fear and consumption' media works and a little bit of digging will turn up studies that prove the suicide rate among gamers is lower than the national average. And anything reguritated by the Falwell crowd is automatically suspect to begin with, right? This isn't the usual "incredibly strange film" that occupies my late nights. But when you spend money on a movie, even a few bucks, even if it was a year or two ago, don't you kinda feel obligated to watch it if for nothing else than to justify that you got something, anything, for that wasted cash? Ditto, amigo.
905 Studios is the party responsible for "Mazes and Monsters" DVD debut. This disc doesn't give me much hope for the quality of "Death Wish Club", a truly strange film that 905 is allegedly releasing soon. There are no extras, and the transfer isn't very good. "M&M" centers around four university students who decide to play a live action game in the caverns around their school. During one of these sessions, Hanks character goes nuts. "Bardu" dreams that his long lost brother is calling him to Manhattan, so he breaks up with his girlfriend (he's a cleric, after all!) and takes off. Well, everyone thinks he's missing in the caverns, and his fellow gamers lie to the police so they won't be expelled. Finally, Hanks snaps out of it for a moment after knifing a mugger, and the gang comes to get him. The final scenes show "Bardu" hopelessly and forever immersed in his character as the heartbroken friends decide to play one last campaign with him on his folks estate.
As propaganda, "Mazes and Monsters" fails on every level. It's not even that entertaining as kitsch like "Reefer Madness" or "Safety Belt For Susie". Lord knows that theme song gives Debbie Boone some competition in the ghastly department. Maybe someone who games and was a wee tyke (like me) during the time it was made might find it amusing as a time capsule of an era they were too young to remember. I tend to doubt it has much replay value even then. A much better purchase for you wizards and paladins out there (and even us boring folks who don't game or read comics ;) is the 5-disc set of the D&D toon that ran on CBS. Not only is that series entertaining, but BCI threw in the kitchen sink as far as extras. There's even a D&D compatable manual included. As for 905, let's hope a truly DVD worthy piece of junk like "Death Wish Club" gets the justice it deserves. I'm not expecting Criterion quality, but c'mon guys, you can do much better than this.
|
|
|
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting if not enchanting, February 28, 2008
This review contains some spoilers.
I've grown to become a Tom Hanks fan over the years. This movie is one of his forgotten early films.
The premise of the film is that a group of young role-playing gamers become a bit *too* involved with a game called "Mazes and Monsters," a blatant reference to Dungeons and Dragons.
Tom Hanks plays the boy that falls hard for the role-playing game and comes out psychotic and suicidal. (One of the climatic scenes eerily takes place on the observation deck of the Twin Towers in New York city.)
The entire cast does a good job with their roles (hence the three stars), but ultimately the movie fails to deliver.
The most glaring problem is that the premise is not credible.
The film was clearly done in response to (actually as a way to exploit) the poor Michigan man that ended up as a suicide victim a year or so before the film was shot. At the time, the media and some religious groups tried to put role-playing as the central reason for the suicide. Good investigative work by folks like Mike Stackpole and organizations like the Game Manufacturers of America have gone a long way towards dispelling these kinds of wild ascertions, and today the film just seems like something akin to "Reefer Madness."
Robin Williams, Al Gore, Mike Myers, and even the royal British princes have all described their experiences with role-playing games. It is hard to push the suspension of disbelief button when the central premise of the movie is that RPGs form an avenue to the darkest pits of the human soul and invite the players to become addicts and potentially commit suicide. (Now, if the film has instead showed the kids playing hour after hour and eventually failing out of school then I would have to admit that that premise is credible.)
Overall, this film is probably worth a Netflix view, but probably is not worth it as an addition to your film library.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
DVD ~ Tom Hanks
DVD ~ Tom Hanks
DVD ~ Tom Hanks
DVD ~ Tom Hanks
