Every now and then, Wendi and I decide to pick up from the video rental outfit a movie or two that are ordinarily thought of as “bad movies.” Which is to say, these are movies that tend to get critically panned as mindless popcorn flicks and that Wendi and I tend to enjoy on their own merits.

This past weekend, each of us picked out a bad movie. I chose “Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever” while Wendi decided to try out “Dungeons & Dragons.” Both films were greeted with a mixture of scorn, indifference and revulsion upon theatrical release. Wendi had never even heard of Ballistic, while I’d heard perhaps too much about D&D.

First came my pick. B:EvS (for lack of a better, less cumbersome acronym) is, at its heart, a straightforward action movie. There’s a plot, but not really much of one. Yes, the characters are two-dimensional at best. Nearly every overdone effect in the modern moviemaking handbook is used, and plot points are telegraphed boldly, even shamelessly. For all that, when it ended we found ourselves saying, “Gee, that wasn’t bad.” We’re not talking great cinema, of course. The movie’s basically enjoyable, and the patently stupid bits are kept to a satisfying minimum.

If you want to watch stuff blow up, if you have even a passing admiration for Lucy Liu, Ray Park (Toad, Darth Maul) and/or Antonio Banderas, you should rent Ballistic.

(Okay, that was short, sweet and relatively painless. Now for the real rant.)

The following night, I obligingly camped out on the couch with Wendi for our viewing of D&D. The movie starts with a 3D travelling shot that wouldn’t be out of place in any number of computer game intro clips. Sadly, it goes downhill rapidly from there. Poor Justin Whalin. Poor, poor Jeremy Irons. Oh, poor misguided and abused Marlon Wayans. And gods help the poor gal who had to play the elf in the bright blue satin… whatever the hell that was. Really, everybody in the cast deserves all of the pity we can heap upon them. The only person who looked like he belonged was Richard O’Brien, though I hesitate to insult him by saying so.

In case you haven’t guessed, I hated this movie. I don’t even have a role-playing background to fuel any sort of righteous indignation. It’s just a damned awful piece of dreck. Let’s see…

• Oh, the scenery-chewing! Watch as Jeremy Irons bites off every last syllable. Watch as his henchman snarls and mumbles. Watch as Justin Whalin tries (and fails) to pull off the obligatory “I don’t care! No wait, I do!” speech. Writhe in pain, often.
  
• Oh, the awful writing! Let’s put it this way: I can almost guarantee that your intelligence will be insulted no less than once every five minutes. And that’s during the stretches with relatively little dialog. At one point, Justin Whalin informs his companions (and, thus, the audience) that he’s heading into a dungeon. “Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have the other half of the movie title!” There’s only one problem. It’s not a dungeon, it’s a cave. (More on that later. Heh. I could’ve said “moron.”) Don’t even get me started on the poor use of what appeared to be a readily available, infinitely flexible wormhole spell…
  
• Oh, the lackluster effects! Yes, yes, we’ve learned how to model and texture dragons. Big freaking deal. Oh, and let’s not forget shiny sparkly bits and that wormhole effect from Sliders. Remember Sliders? Yeah, that show sucked too.
  
• Oh, the strained attempts at levity! Marlon Wayans is used abominably in this movie, and I don’t actually dislike the guy. Note to screenwriters: Schtick without cleverness isn’t funny. To make matters worse, he’s almost the only cast member with anything like comic talents, so when other characters are given funny things to say it comes off even worse than Marlon’s hamming and slapstick. Riff-Raff‘s brief appearance is at least less painful than most of the rest of the movie in the “witty and clever” department.
  
• Oh, the gawdy, tacky, unspeakable costumes! I feel ever so sorry for the undoubtedly talented young woman who was forced to wear that goofy blue… whatever-it-was. Nevermind the Empress and her absurd “Amidala-lite” costumes, or her (*shudder*) battle garb. How about the blue-lipped henchman, eh? Suffice to say that the only truly funny thing about this movie is how the characters look. (Note the ever-so-cutesy costume change for the love-interest… er, mage chick. That’s right, hit us over the head with the RPG stereotypes, why don’t you?)
  
• Last but not least… Oh, the elements poorly ripped off from elsewhere! The political bickering of The Phantom Menace? Sure, we can show you something a bit like that. The young thief looking through a piled-high treasure trove for the Quest Object Of The Moment, pointedly denying himself pocketsful of gold? Yeah, we’ve got your Aladdin thing right here. (The kid’s even a “diamond in the rough,” as Wendi and I simultaneously intoned during that sequence.) The cantina scene from the original Star Wars? Well, sure, we can show off our costuming talents in a bar-like setting. Do you yearn for the good old days of “blaxploitation?” Just feast your eyes, folks.

I could go on and on (and on) but suffice to say that any way you look at it, D&D is an utterly malodorous lump of decaying flesh. Even making fun of it requires you to sit through it, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Hell, I don’t even want to see Best Brains tackle this bucket of slop.

To recap: “Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever” isn’t half bad, and is a bit more than half good, as long as you are into action flicks chock full of effects, stunts and explosions and few pretentions regarding plot. “Dungeons & Dragons” is totally execrable from start to finish.

That is, in case I haven’t already made that fact painfully clear.