The hubs and I saw the Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con for the movie Knights of Badassdom years ago now. It has a stellar cast – Peter Dinklage, Summer Glau, Ryan Kwanten, Steve Zahn, Jimmi Simpson, and more – and a premise that sounded really funny. Basically, it’s supposed to be Galaxy Quest for the Live Action Role Play set. We literally could not wait to see this movie. We got home from Comic-Con and eagerly awaited the release.

But the movie was held up in some sort of development hell, and wasn’t released for years. It’s on Netflix now. So, the question is: Was it worth the wait?

Sadly, no.

The actors are game, and they are the only good thing about this movie. They’re all doing what I call their “Billy Zane”. I love Billy Zane, and he’s a much better actor than he gets credit for. But, when he’s got a terrible director, he reverts to the first role where he got acclaim and worked with a great director, his role from Dead Calm. By now, I know that if I’m seeing “Dead Calm Billy” it’s because he’s gotten no direction, or poor direction, and is reverting to what he feels is solid ground.

It’s sad when The Zane has to do that. It’s sadder when you witness an entire cast of fine actors doing the same thing.

Whatever was wrong with this movie – and there’s a lot wrong with it – it starts and ends with two things: the director and the script.

I haven’t seen a movie this amateurish in a long while. I’ve seen amateur films that were more polished. It’s as if the director chose the lamest options at every decision point. Starting with the script.

In the publishing industry, you’re warned to be careful about how many genres you mash together. Just the right amount of the right genres mixed together, such as action, humor, and science fiction, can give you a great movie like Men in Black. But if you add in too much or, worse, add in everything, you get a mess. And Knights of Badassdom is just such a mess.

It’s poking gentle fun at LARP, right? No, not really. As far as the script shows us, LARPers are totally lame. It’s an action adventure, right? No, not really. There’s action, but it’s poorly done. It’s a horror movie, though, right? Yes, it is, with far more gore than it needed, and I say that because the gore felt like it was there to distract you from the fact that everything happening was just incredibly stupid. It’s got romance, though, so there’s that! Yeah, but the romances don’t make anyone care and feel fake or forced. There’s magic, though, right? There is, making as little sense as everything else.

But…great actors, it’s got great actors! It does indeed. And without decent direction, they’re all doing “Dead Calm Billy”. Dinklage is doing his Game of Thrones, Kwanten is doing his True Blood, Glau is trying to do her Sarah Connor Chronicles role as a normal girl, Simpson is doing Merry from Psych, Zahn is zany since that’s what he’s most comfortable with, and on and on.

Tom Hopper, as Gunther, deserves to be in another film, one where he actually is the badass hero, not played for laughs that don’t make sense. If you’re fighting a giant monster, wouldn’t the guy who’s big, strong, focused on and trained in fighting, and carrying a gigantic broadsword be the guy you actually looked at to save the day, versus being some bizarre form of comic relief?

Kwanten is a rock and roll guy who doesn’t have a band and sings the opening number in the garage where he works. His girlfriend dumps him because he’s going nowhere. Zahn’s inherited tons of cash and lives in a castle in the middle of suburbia, where Kwanten and Dinklage live also. Zahn, Dinklage, and other friends are into LARP. Kwanten isn’t for some reasons never really explained right, though he was a D&D master! We get told that a lot, so I know it’s true. Glau and Hopper are cousins – he believes this stuff is real and she kind of takes care of him. Zahn found some ancient book of spells that were supposed to summon angels but instead summon demons, and we know this because we get a voiceover (the First Sign of a movie that’s likely to suck) and Simpson’s character tells us the exact same words as the voiceover later in the film. They bring forth a succubus and then they accidentally turn it into a giant demon from hell. There’s lots of bloodshed and horrible things, and then Kwanten uses his God-given gift of song (that we had no idea was actually that great because we’ve only seen him sing to other mechanics) and saves the day.

Along the way there are tons of LARP and D&D things that are used for laughs, but never, at any time, did I feel that the person directing or the two people who wrote this utter turkey of a script actually liked D&D or role playing of any kind. In Galaxy Quest, the kids who are so into the Star Trek-like show that was off the air before they were born are who actually help save the day. In this movie, the kid who’s totally into it, the one who believes, the only one not shocked when demons show up, sort of gets to help, but not as much as you’d expect and not in the ways that really matter.

The saddest part is that the premise – and the movie the actors thought they were making, based on their panel at Comic-Con – had so much potential. It could have been hilarious. It could have been something to own and watch over and over again, just like Galaxy Quest. But it’s not.

We waited years for this movie, and now that we’ve seen it, all I can say is that the studio that refused to release this movie was right. The title, sadly, says it all – it’s bad, and stinks of ass.

Rating: D; 1.5 stars out of 5 (for the actors)