Knights of Badassdom Blu-ray Review
In July of 2011 we posted a trailer for KNIGHTS OF BADASSDOM, which at the time I thought looked entertaining, in a completely guilty pleasure capacity. Over the next three years I periodically saw the trailer at the beginning of various films and always wondered whatever happened to it. Well, after getting pushed back for three years and completely skipping a theatrical release, KNIGHTS OF BADASSDOM has finally received its Blu-ray debut. Though it’s definitely not the “diamond in the rough” film I was hoping for, it was fun and campy enough that I don’t feel like I completely wasted almost an hour and a half hours of my life.
KNIGHTS OF BADASSDOM begins by introducing us to Joe (Ryan Kwanten) as he is being dumped by his girlfriend for his lack of ambition. Lucky for Joe, he has two good buddies, Eric (Steve Zahn) and Hung (Peter Dinklage), who have the perfect distraction to get Joe out of his funk- a weekend long LARPing (Live Action Role Playing) event. Unfortunately, during this event the role playing gets a little too real when a demon succubus is released upon the unsuspecting group of players.
KNIGHTS OF BADASSDOM had all the ingredients of a bad film, which was probably why it took so long to be released, but the one redeeming quality that it had was a pretty decent group of actors. With three HBO stars (Zahn in TREME, Dinklage in GAME OF THRONES and Kwanten in TRUE BLOOD), a prime time star on an award winning comedy (Danny Pudi from COMMUNITY) and a Joss Whedon alumni in Summer Glau, the film had potential to be fairly successful standing on this merit along. Sadly, the movie just ended up being a fun, campy and ridiculous mess with good actors. Had any other group of actors been in these roles, this film would have been not been worth watching. Take that as you will.
The biggest problem with KNIGHTS OF BADASSDOM was the pacing. Considering it only had a runtime of 86 minutes, that’s a big problem. The audience knew some big showdown was going to happen at the end, it just felt like it took FOREVER to get there. Luckily there was plenty of carnage sprinkled in (which is a necessity in a campy film like this), but all events leading up to the end felt a little forced and unnecessary at times. One of the shining points was the character Ronnie (played by Jimmi Simpson from IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA and HOUSE OF CARDS), but even his quirky character couldn’t save the film.
KNIGHTS OF BADASSDOM doesn’t have a high re-watch ability factor, which is a key element I look for in films like this. With that said, I can see myself picking it up after all of my other guilty pleasure films have been utilized and I’m looking for something silly and excessively gory. That’s too bad, because the story concept was intriguing, but I guess people just aren’t into watching LARPer’s do their thing, even if one of them is as cute as Ryan Kwanten.
KNIGHTS OF BADASSDOM BLU-RAY REVIEW
Video: The video transfer has its problems, most notably during the darker scenes. It’s surprisingly flawed for such a recent release.
Audio: The audio is fine, but again, I expect more from newer releases.
San Diego Comic-Con Panel (48:33): This is really the only feature on the disc worth noting and although the panel gets slow at times, it was fun to see the cast together talking about a movie they had high hopes for.
There are also a few interviewers with the cast and crew.
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