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A niche movie if ever there was one, The Gamers: Dorkness Rising follows both the real life and roleplaying fantasy life of a group of, you guessed it, Gamers.  Roleplayers to be specific.   The film shifts, akwardly, between poorly acted scenes around a gaming table, and slightly better acted scenes (not by much though) set in the fantasy world in which the gamers are roleplaying.

Gamers has a number of laughable scenes, like the unprovoked murder of several innocent peasants throughout the movie, killed out of boredom with the GM.  Sadly there aren’t enough of these diamonds in the rough, and many scenes go on far longer than they should.

If you’re a roleplayer and you’re watching this movie with someone who isn’t, you might find the whole thing embarrassing…  not just for how bad the film itself is but for how bad actual roleplayers act in-game, and at how dorky a hobby roleplaying really can be.

The thing that really pulls the movie down is the acting.  It is as though my gaming friends and I decided to get together and film a movie with whatever we had lying around…. which looks to be the story with Gamers. At times I almost got the feeling the movie was trying to be a cult classic (an aspiration it never rises to.)

The spirit of the film endures though:  a mostly good natured look at roleplaying games, pointing out the absurdities of several conventions, and for actual roleplayers probably bringing back some fond memories of wacky games of their own.  Near the end it even tries to draw a line between muchkin players (out to win at all costs) and those who play for the story telling element, for what roleplaying should “really” be.

Is this movie for you?  If you roleplay and have some time to kill (and don’t mind some poorly acted scenes) you might like it.  For almost everyone else, probably not.

2   Dice Out Of   5  (Nice Try)