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Grade: C+

Verdict: Better than the Super Mario Brothers movie.

Details: Starring Jeremy Irons, Justin Whalin and Marlon Wayans. Directed by Courtney Solomon. Rated PG-13 for violence and scary scenes. One hour, 45 minutes.

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Review: This much I can say for certain about “Dungeons & Dragons”: I liked it much better than “The Phantom Menace.”

That said, I'm not sure who the audience for this fantasy-adventure is. On the one hand, it's done in that bright, overstated manner you find in children's theater. On the other, it's got several disturbing moments — the death of a major character and a nasty thingie that sprouts out its victim's ears — that may not be kid-friendly.

Of course, the idea of basing a movie on a game that's been around since 1974 is odd enough to begin with, even if, as the production notes remind us, Dungeons and Dragons is the granddaddy of RPG (role-playing games). The exceedingly complicated storyline borrows elements from fantasy-adventure heavy hitters like “Lord of the RIngs,” “Star Wars” and the Harry Potter series. Basically, it's about the kingdom of Izmer where an elite group of magicians called Mages run everything while non-magicians are treated as slaves. The idealistic young Empress Savina (Thora Birch) wants to make everybody equal. This doesn't sit well with evil Mage Profion (Jeremy Irons, who's suffered several reversals of fortune since winning an Oscar for “Reversal of Fortune.”)

He plots to depose her by attacking her powerful Golden Dragons with the even more powerful Red Dragons. To control them, however, he needs a magic Rod.

That's where two thieves, Ridley (Justin Whalin doing a generic young Indiana Jones) and Snails (Marlon Wayans doing the sort of squealing and eye-rolling that would give Spike Lee a migraine) come in. With the help of an apprentice Mage (Zoe McLellan), a peevish dwarf (Lee Aenberg) and an enigmatic elf (Kristen Wilson), they decipher the scroll that leads to the dragon's eye that leads to the Rod.

Go that? Well, it doesn't really matter. All you have to know is that our heroes are on a quest and Irons and his ominous henchman (who speaks in one of those bad-guy sybillant whispers) are out to foil them. The special effects range from good to kinda silly. The dialogue, unfortunately, is mostly silly. That doesn't mean the movie is hard to sit through. Really, it's not. But it does skew, well, young.

My guess is if you've got an 11-to-14-year-old who's already seen the “Grinch” movie three times and the “Dalmatians” movie once, “Dungeons & Dragons” might be a welcome change of pace. And if you're nervous about the nasty stuff, e-mail me and I'll play spoiler for concerned parents.

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Cox News Service

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