Movie: Gamers 2: Dorkness Rising

Remember that movie The Gamers talked about earlier? Well, the wonderful people at Dead Gentlemen Productions made a sequel. Granted, this is not new news, but if you enjoyed The Gamers and were not aware of the existence of its younger cinematic sibling, then here you go!

The second movie, as you may have guessed, is called Gamers 2: Dorkness Rising. It fits into the same world as the college setting of the previous movie, but despite a few familiar faces in the cast, only the briefly-appearing Mark was at all present for the events of the first movie. This movie follows the same split storyline approach as the first movie (filming events both inside and outside of the game-verse), though Gamers 2 does focus a little more on the real-world plotline. The special effects, sets, and make-up are similarly excellent for the budget the production team had, and the script is great.

In this movie, Kevin Lodge, a dungeon master for his friends' games, has written his own gaming adventure, but his friends have never been able to get to the end of the story without dying first. Determined to beat the game, they decide to give another whack at it with new characters and a bigger party, bringing Joanna, the enthusiastic ex-girlfriend of one of the players into the game. With the original gamers playing brand new monk, bard, and gender-bending sorceress characters, will the addition of Joanna's fighter character and a paladin played by Lodge make all the difference in the outcome of this new campaign? Well, I try not to spoil too much here, so you'll just have to watch it yourself if you want to find out.

In my opinion, this movie is even funnier than the original Gamers. Like the previous movie, you don't even actually game to understand the movie. Heck, you don't even have to see the previous movie to find this one funny. I watched Gamers 2 before I ever watched The Gamers and I still thought it was hilarious.

Both the real-world and the in-game characters are given more time for character development, and the lines are just laugh-out-loud funny. The character interaction is just golden. The male-played sorceress tends to forget both her alignment and her sex, the bard tends to find himself in fatal situations, and the monk tends to fancy himself a philosopher, all of which inevitably lead to hilarity. The in-game characters, while not really fully fleshed out, do put forth a few side-splitting performances of their own. In the real-world-verse, the character interaction and lines are interesting and pretty realistic, and the characters do feel like real, everyday people.

I can't say much more without spoiling much of the humor or or spamming this post with quotes, so I'll end by saying that if you liked The Gamers, or even if just this movie sounds interesting, I whole-heartedly encourage you to go out and watch it.