I am grading on a curve, but this movie was surprisingly good and faithful to the D&D theme. The actors are all unknowns and acquit themselves well, especially Clemency Burton-Hill.<br /><br />This movie is superior in almost every way to the original--the acting is better (none of the overacting of Malcolm McDowell) and the dialogue is decent (cheesy, but not to a ridiculous degree like the original).<br /><br />The best part is how faithful the movie is to D&D concepts like limited spell casting and a Lich controlling Wraiths. And for a $15 million dollar movie (according to IMDb), the producers did a great job of building lavish sets and costumes which give the appropriate mood and texture to the movie (again, in contrast to the fake and cheap sets of the original).<br /><br />The weakest part of the movie were some of the computer effects. Understandable given the budget, but a bit of a distraction, especially since the climax uses a lot of it.<br /><br />Giving this an 8 out of 10 since I'm grading on a scale (this movie was much superior to most direct-to-video or SciFi "original" movies).