Half-Assed Movie

I probably didn't need to warn you not to see the movie Knights of Badassdom. I'm guessing most of you have never heard of it, or are skeptical of the title alone. But I was taken in.

First, there was the premise. A group of LARPers are called upon for actual heroism, on an actual quest, when they accidentally summon a succubus from hell. That's just fun right there. Second, there was the cast, which I knew included Ryan Kwanten (Jason Stackhouse, from True Blood), Peter Dinklage (Tyrion, from Game of Thrones), and Summer Glau (River, from Firefly). In watching the movie, I learned the cast also included Steve Zahn (from Treme) and Danny Pudi (Abed, from Community) as well! That's certainly a lot of geek cred to support a low-budget indie movie.

But the movie leaves you mystified as to what could have attracted them all. The script is less interested in its unusual premise than it is in becoming a quite usual slasher film. Aside from maybe three genuine laughs in a 90-minute movie, the jokes all land flat. The visual effects are, predictably, terrible. The climax is too lame to even be funny.

It's hard to even speak well of any of the actors I named above. Each of them has done better work (in the things I named, and others) than you'll see here. You might even feel embarrassed for some of them.

I'd call the movie a D-, and it really only rates that high because it did manage to catch me off guard and make me laugh two or three times. If it hadn't been so short, and hadn't coaxed me into wanting to see how it ended, I probably would have just given up halfway through. You shouldn't even give it that much time.