Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

jrcarney52 What's it about? Well, it's a little complicated to explain if you haven't played tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons and Dragons. And yet—it's quite easy to explain if you do play roleplaying games. If my description of the plot comes off to you non-RPGers as alienating, don't be turned away! The humor and cleverness of this film is not so "sub- cultural" that you won't find yourself laughing and perhaps touched.Anyhow. Back to the question at hand. What's it about? It concerns a group of friends who play Dungeons and Dragons together. If you play Dungeons and Dragons, then you know that D&D is a kind of "collaborative storytelling ritual." Thus, the film also relates the story of this group of friends's Dungeons and Dragons "campaign," that is, the story they tell and act out together.And so you have two narratives here: (1) the story of their real lives, sitting around the game table, laughing, drinking soda, arguing, etc., and (2) the story of their D&D campaign, set in a fantasy world plagued by the evil necromancer Mort Kemnon. So, you have two narratives juxtaposed over top of each other here: a realistic one and a fantasy one. This narrative juxtaposition is the source of much of the pleasure of the film—its humor, its insights into human character, etc.. Let me try to explain.An example. There's one character, Gary, who has decided to play a sorcerer in the D&D game. And so he plays another character, a sorcerer. And yet, he can't decide on which gender to make his character. And as he's playing, he sometimes forgets his character is a girl. And so, you have a character in the fantasy world, a sorcerer/sorceress, by the name of Luster, played by two actors: Christian Doyle and Jennifer Page. One scene you have a scantily-clad, sexy sorceress; and the next scene you have a dude in excessively feminine sorceress's clothing. What is the result of these complicated narrative swirlings that I'm having difficulty articulating here? Hilarity.Aside front he plot, you have some very good comedic acting in here. The character of Flynn Fine, the womanizing bard (played by Scott C. Brown), is hilarious. There's a scene where he attempts to use his bard-singing abilities to calm the rage of a marauding band of goblins, and is pin- cushioned with spears. This moved me to tears (tears of laughter, that is). When I watch the film, this scene is a "rewinder-and-play-againer".The stories of other characters--the game master, Kevin Lodge (Nathan Rice), and the "rules lawyer," Cass (Brian Lewis)—are, in addition to being both hilarious and fun, touching stories. Kevin is struggling with writer's block; Cass is struggling with his need to "win," to be the best, the greatest, the one. There's another character, the fighter Daphne (Carol Roscoe), who is perfect at being the opposite of the stereotypical mighty-thewed warrior: intelligent, sweet, noble, and-- nevertheless--deadly. In a fun way her character shines a lot of light on gender stereotypes.For being an independent film company, the production value is also quite impressive. Costuming, computer effects, choreography, props, scenery: all of these suggest that this film is indeed an "independent," low-budget production—and yet, the production elements seem to suggest a characteristic style, a unique flavor that is endearing and impressive rather than cheesy.Anyhow, I love this movie! In juxtaposing "real life" with "fantasy life," it reveals important inter-connections between the two; and it does this difficult work with humor and authenticity in a way only an independent production could.

imdb-21622 I am so impressed, really. I expected cheesy gamer humor and nothing else.OK, there's a ton of pretty geeky humor. But the movie is so well done. The acting is quite good.The dialog, while gamer cheesy at times, I guess to cater to the gamer crowd, is not bad at all. At times it's even, dare I say, great.When the female gamer, who built this non traditional fighter type character rather then the usual (min/max) type gets all these additional attacks (seem right, I did not check the rules,) it was cool.The sets are amazing for what must be a fairly low production movie.The story moves right along. The transitions from game world to real world are well done. A male playing a female character would sometimes be played by a female, and sometimes by himself. Pretty clever, I thought.The guy who decided to play a female, but kept forgetting he was female was good for a lot of laughs. He even said tag at one point, and the female walked on to play the role ( sorry, I did not look her name up, she did great though.) The guy always trying to "get some", got a bit tedious, but I guess that was more gamer humor.There was just so much to like about the movie. Lighthearted. Fun! Very well done and I am saying that as a movie fan, not a gamer (and I am not a D&D player.) As I said I expected SO much less.Movies often don't hold my attention, I end up listening to them while working on my computer. This one held my attention. I can't give a movie much higher praise.

Umbru I was laughing so hard most of the time I had people glaring at me because they couldn't hear over my laughter. I literally fell out of my seat at a specific point.I'm a Bartender and Bouncer for a living in the Real world (note my use of the term Real world, sadly it always has to come first), and whenever I tell someone I play RPG's, it's usually followed by one of two questions: 1. What, like D&D? I played that back in Junior High.2. Really? I've been looking or a group forever! Have room for another? Very rarely do people not know what D&D and Gaming are.That having been said almost every person who watches this movie can get something out of it. Even if you aren't a Gamer, chances are there is something in your life you "Geek Out" about that can be made fun of in a light hearted way, and that alone means you can relate to the hijinx in this flick. It's just light hearted happiness in an hour and a half.

Sylvan-5 Better than the original, "the Gamers: Dorkness Rising" manages to pull off a funny comedy with good acting, fine special effects, and comedy that transcends the "gamer" knowledge-base and do so on a low budget. I've seen many low-budget films that have been terrible and almost none that have been as good as their high-budget counterparts. This film blows most mainstream movies away! Parts are a bit weak (the bit with the pirates and ninjas -while funny- goes on a bit long without explanation and takes you out of the movie for a bit) but, overall, this is a very strong film.I'm very happy to say that I bought this film as soon as I saw it and brought it home.Any chance we can look forward to another feature Gamers movie from these guys? :)