As a former LARP-er, I heard many of my brothers and sisters in arms complain about the hobbies depiction in the 2008 film Role Models. For those of you who are unaware, the movie shows some pretty stereotypical views about LARP-ers being the poster children for social outcasts, and generally out of touch with reality. I dunno about you, but it’s not exactly something you want aligned with your hobby, much less reinforced at the box office. With this in mind, when I heard about the Knights of Badassdom being made in 2013, I was apprehensive, but fairly hopeful. After all, with an all star cast like Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones), Ryan Kwanten(True Blood), Summer Glau(Firefly), Danny Pudi (Community) and Steve Zahn, there can’t be much that’d go wrong, right? Those actors wouldn’t sign up for a really terrible movie without proper thought… right?
Knights of Badassdom tells the story of Joe, who after splitting with his high school sweetheart, passes out drunk and gets shanghai’d by his two best friends and taken to a Live Action Role Play (LARP) event in the middle of a forest. After a fair amount of convincing (and a fair amount of help from our old friends drugs and alcohol), Joe agrees to join his friends on an epic quest to forget about his ex girlfriend in the best, most healthy way possible; 
hitting people with foam swords. However, things quickly go awry when his best friend Eric tries to read from a seemingly harmless spell tome during a ritual to resurrect his character, and accidentally summons a real life succubus, who just happens to look like Joe’s ex.
Now, I won’t mince words. There’s a reason this movie went straight to TV. In fact, there are several. For one, it can’t seem to decide which genre it is between horror and comedy, with scenes going from dark and bloody to far fetched and filled with one liners. The plot is incredibly contrived, almost to the point where you can tell where the whole thing is going within the first 20 minutes. And even with the fact that all the cast were made to do a weekend of LARP themselves to get a hang of things, the script is still chock full of stereotypes like the lines “My mom made me that mace…” and the inability for any of the characters to speak without adding words like “needst”. And let’s not forget Summer Glau’s character, Gwen, the stereotypically hot chick who’s only agreed to come LARP-ing so she can babysit her out of touch cousin.
But hey, if the script is that bad, maybe the film quality was good, right? Wrong! There are several points during the movie where you’d swear the camera man had taken 10 double espressos before filming with how shaky and out of focus it is. It had the quality of a student film, and I should know, I’m a student. What’s more, the monster effects weren’t even as good as some of the stuff BBC puts out. And anyone whose watched Doctor Who knows how dated those effects are.
If I had to choose some redeeming features of the movie, it’d have to be the costume design, combined with the ending. The costume design is actually quite true to life. There’s a wide array of choice between forest fairy, complete with wings, and fully armored medieval juggernaut, and unlike some low budget productions, it actually seems realistic. I’ve seen movies and web series with the same budget have armor literally made of paper, whereas this has none. Kudos to the costume department. As for the ending, well, lets just say the term “badass” is apt. It involves Peter Dinklage transforming into a 
super powered warrior while Ryan Kwanten banishes the succubus with the power of heavy metal. I’ll let you fill in the rest of the gaps yourselves.
So all in all, is Knights of Badassdom worth watching? Well, I’d say steer clear if you’re a LARP-er, this movie does do a little bit better in terms of realistic characters compared to Role Models, but that doesn’t mean it fully escapes the stigma of the delusional fantasy geek characters. However, basing it purely on a film perspective, it’s not the worst thing to put on if you’re bored. Correlations can definitely be drawn between this and Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny, and there are some moments that are good for a chuckle or two. What’s more, the cast does do their best with the material being what it is, so fair play for the performances. Just don’t expect anyone to think you’ve got amazing taste if you put this in your Top 10.
Good for a laugh, not for a LARP. 5/10
