I caught this on television today, though I missed the beginning. I was familiar with this Dungeons and Dragons inspired made-for-television movie, and I was happy for the opportunity to see it. This is Tom Hank's first movie by the way.
Four college kids play a popular Dungeons and Dragons stand-in game 'Mazes and Monsters' and none are particularly happy people. The main character Robbie, (Tom Hanks) flunked out of his last school because he played the game too much. But this time things will be different. Much different.
He doesn't get along with his folks too well, but mostly Robbie is affected by the disappearance many years ago of his brother Hall. Another player, (JayJay) for reasons of his own was thinking about committing suicide in a cavern, but is instead inspired to bring his fellow players out there so they can play their game on location instead of in a dorm room that smells like old pizza boxes.
This is the point where I joined our heroes; as they played Mazes and Monsters in the caves, directed by JayJay, the unseen maze controller. (The game's referee) After receiving direction from a skeleton to find some mysterious herb, blond guy (Daniel) suggests they split up. Robbie is against it, and when asked if he's afraid of he unfortunately doesn't respond, "Have you ever played a role playing game, watched Scooby Doo, Hawk the Slayer, or any slasher movie ever?" (Rule #1: Don't split the party!) and instead says he isn't scared.
Alone in the dark, Robbie loses it; we see him attacked by an imaginary monster which actually looks scary enough for a figment of the imagination in a dark cave in a low budget movie. Since I joined the movie 40 minutes in, I don't know if he was already this crazy or this just set him off. All I know is that he doesn't break character after the game is done. Robbie now believes he is Pardue.
Tom Hanks: Just a dude pretending to be a dude pretending to be another dude.
The players enjoy the experience and Robbie's 'acting' and that JayJay didn't create fake paper-mache monsters. (Maybe that's what this movies' special effects department did) The last member of the group Kate, (Robbie's girlfriend) raises her lamp to her face while saying, "The most frightening monsters are those that exist in our minds." How ominous!
Robbie is now also going by the name of his game character, a priest named Pardue. He has a dream where his god stands at the end of a backlit tunnel and tells him he must be celibate, alone, and holy. Also he's a higher level now because he killed that cave monster.
...and Robbie's the quiet religious guy who ends up going crazy.
So the next morning he advises Kate that he can't touch her anymore; but at least he's not talking like Pardue when he tells her. I can't help but think that no one would notice his mania were he not playing a cleric and trying to be holy. Probably the unpopularity of that roleplaying character type owes itself to the legacy of this movie.
Later, Kate follows Daniel into caves when she sees him poking around them at night. I started to really enjoy the directing of this movie at this point. The cave is really kind of threatening, and Tom Hanks' acting is good. The score sometimes uses a saxophone, but otherwise it's kind of creepy.
Daniel makes a move on Kate and wins her over with the admission that he thought he was like a Vulcan with 'no emotions' before he opened up to her. What a dork. Vulcans DO have emotions, they just control them well. EPIC FAIL
Shortly thereafter, Robbie mysteriously disappears on a quest to join with his god, 'The Great Hall'.
Guess again.
His friends find a map which references both 'The Great Hall' and 'The Two Towers'. Kate, JayJay, and Daniel try to enlist the police in the investigation of the caves, thinking Robbie's gotten lost in them. Props to the writer for keeping us in the dark about what Robbie is doing for a while after he's gone; though because we saw his dreams, we already knew 'The Great Hall' on the map he left behind was a person, (His missing brother) and not a place like everyone else thinks. That should have also been played a little closer to the chest, though there is something to be said for use of dramatic irony.
The police investigator immediately zeroes in on the game as the culprit, but can't find anything of Robbie in the cave. So the gamers are on their own.
This movie really owes its existence to a book which tried to sound the alarm about the dangers of games like Dungeons and Dragons, but in this movie Robbie is already unbalanced because of his parents and his missing brother and is saved by his gaming friends in the end. I guess you can't really just forget about it though because it is the plot that he's too into the game and it's not just some unseen macguffin. Maybe it's just because I have difficulty taking the warning seriously so I disregard it so easily. If you did a modern movie about Warcraft Online, guess I wouldn't say such a movie is not about online multi-player computer games, so I guess I shouldn't say it about this movie.
Robbie appears in New York, and gets into a fight with some muggers. He stabs one of them in genuine self-defense while he envisions himself as fighting a monster. In his ongoing delusions, he is directed to the 'two towers' by a homeless guy in the subway tunnels. I get the feeling the subway vagrant may not be enjoying the role reversal he experiences while listening to Pardue's crazy blather about dragons and treasure.
Between the clues left behind, and one desperate phone call from Robbie, (Who seems to have his good and bad moments when it comes to his delusions) the gamers are able to find Robbie and stop him from jumping off the World Trade Center. I notice that the scene on the roof of the tower seems to lack a lot of wind like you'd expect up there. Didn't really get a sense of danger or height in that scene. Plus he didn't require much convincing.
In the coda Robbie's mother forgives his friends saying that it's not their fault that he's nuts. It sort of is though, because they knew he was too into the game to begin with. We see that despite being saved, Robbie is still thinking he's Pardue and is still a ways away from recovery. This just to remind you that friends don't let friends play Dungeons and Dragons. Except that Robbie's friends humor him by making their pleasant walk around the grounds of his parent's home a daring adventure. So maybe they didn't learn anything.
The movie is well directed, seems to have good acting, and I like the story. It's actually a good movie even if it's message is alarmist. There is a truth here; that individuals who are unbalanced or alone can get lost in fantasy. Though tromping about a cave dressed like a wizard seems more like living than tapping a space bar over and over again to get enough fake gold to buy a fake mansion in fake world.
That's not a world we want to live in.
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