Tubi Thursday: Mazes & Monsters (1982)

 After seeing a D&D Film that didn't suck, it's worth going back to seeing a hit piece on the game made before I was born.

Is it as bad as I thought?

The Film begins In Media Res with people searching for a missing Student in a Cave.

The Reporter blatantly editorializes about M&M (do I need to explain?) being 'a psycho drama' and an 'outlet for sad kids.'  Classy.

The Film's story ACTUALLY begins with us meeting 4 Students arriving for College, getting a taste of their melodrama.

Of course, the main draw is Robbie...

He is transferring in because he was 'too into M&M' at the expense of his Schoolwork.

Our Heroes, of course, don't know this and entice him to join their game.

He does it for the girl, but this guy has *all* of the hats.

The MC (Maze Commander) is depressed and wants to kill himself.

When he finds a cave, he does the less bleak thing- kill his Character off.

He takes the game to a new level- playing in a Cave.

What could go wrong?

Robbie- who was already messed up from past experiences, including his brother running away from home- freaks out and starts to think of himself as his Character.

This makes him act weird- mostly offscreen- and do things like give his money away and break up with his girlfriend/fellow player (to be chaste).

He is obsessed with finding 'The Great Hall' and runs off.

* Kudos to the Guy who put this Poster together, to be fair. *

That leads to the Cold Open...only he's not in the Cave.  Yep, that was a complete waste AND we saw the Scene twice!

He runs off to NYC- subconsciously, he's looking for his brother.

While there, he defeats a Monster...which means actually stabbing this Mugger (whom he sees as a Monster).

Hi, Kevin Peter Hall.

They really drag things out here- gotta hit 2 hours with commercials for that TV Movie spot- but the group finally finds him atop one of 'The Two Towers.'  This is 1982, so you know where that is.

The irony, of course, is that some people called on the Lord of the Rings Producers to retitle the 2nd Film since it was 'referencing the building.'  
It was not and they didn't.

They tease a Happy Ending where they meet up with Robbie...but he's had a full break and thinks that he's his D&D...I mean M&M Character.

One last bit of melodrama.  Sigh.  The End.

This is not great.  Even for propaganda, it's not that great.

The Film is very heavy-handed at the beginning with that Reporter, but then tries to tell a semi-nuanced tale of Robbie's mindset leading to his break from reality.  Mind you, it's a TV Movie and Hanks isn't that great of an Actor yet, so it doesn't work too well.

The big issue is all of the filler.  So much time is spent of nothing much important and Scenes just get dragged out.  On top of that, the accidental hilarity of them running around in the Cave in their hand-made outfits is pretty minimal.

If you're going into this for ironic viewing, you won't get as much out of it as you'd expect.  It's really just lots of melodrama, punctuated by a VERY over-the-top Soundtrack with try-hard Songs trying to dictate the emotions of the Scene.

This, by the way, is built on obviously false reporting of a real incident in 1979, which was covered properly in a 1984 Book called The Dungeon Master.  It was just an excuse to blame D&D for a sad event and nothing more.

Speaking of Dungeons, check out this REAL bit of box art that was made for the Film when it was dumped onto DVD to exploit the release of The Da Vinci Code.

* Zero props to this Graphic Designer *

FYI the version on Tubi atm is NOT the HD Remaster.  It's still a bad Movie, but it would be nice to see it in HD, at least.