Mythica: The Darkspore

Mythica series is a niche for fantasy fans, it doesn't boast high budget production, but decent enough for a B-movie viewing. The Darkspore has a couple of nice designs and occasional humor, yet the narrative doesn't produce that great of an adventure. It does feel as though we're seeing some sub quest from a game or mediocre side episode of less-than-epic tale.

It revolves around a party of mage, necromancer to be specific, and warriors to ensure the enemy force doesn't possess the illusive Darkspore. Unfortunately, there's barely any draw to the premise, it spends almost one hour to set-up the plot yet the momentum doesn't take off and it just ends up floating in a flat line the entire time. A few gimmicky plot devices that are introduced won't appeal to many since they tend to be vague.

Actors do their best on the material they have, the costumes are nice as well. In some scenes, there is decent humor to be had, mainly in the expense of the joker character. Aside from that, the personalities feel bland. They don't engage the audience, merely rehearsing stereotypical fight the evil theme. It could've capitalized on the stereotypical premise to bring humor or present more twists, but the movie keeps it too safe.

Effects are passable at best, there are a few instances that really break the immersion. For example, the encounter with mythical entity that just looks dreadful. Considering the budget, it does fairly well for half the runtime, although when these flaws appear they are noticeably jarring.

I'm inclined to give it higher score since it has the feel of fantasy adventure when it shines for a brief moment, but the lackluster characterization and effects make the movie into an ordinary fetch quest, hardly a captivating tale.

This film, the second in a three part series, was very well-done and enjoyable. I thought the character development in the first would have done well to continue in the second but there seems to be a disconnect in the relationships amongst the main characters that should not have existed based on the limited information that everybody had - especially at the beginning. Still, overall, a good product but just a tick less than the previous installment. Great acting, good storyline, sub-par CG/special effects (which is to be expected). ARROWSTORM knows how to make really good B movies. Now they have a good enough reputation that I am going to look up by production company to see what else they've put out. Enjoy this most recent installment of Mythica and we all await, Mythica: Necromancer (out this year, 2015, according to IMDb.com). This movie rates better than a 4.1 which shows as of the time I am writing this review. Get out of the visual dependency on high-end CG/special effects and enjoy these good stories for what they are... good stories. Be entertained, folks!

The party continues on their quest, this time helped by a dark elf with mysterious markings, while a warlock is trying to beat them to their goal. Unfortunately, it seemed like the makers made a lot less effort for this film, especially in the areas of character interaction and storyline. That's unfortunate, especially since I loved A Quest for Heroes.

Some commentators focused on the quality of the special effects. I don't care about those, but this is an indicator that those people didn't feel the characters were important or the story inspiring, and that is on the script writer. If the story is great and the characterization well done, no one looks twice on the special effects. I think that, while I still enjoyed the film, more effort should be made to make the viewers feel with the characters in a story that one could believe in.

Bottom line: fun film, really inconsistent characters, jumping from love to hate on a whim, and a disappointing and rushed ending that made little sense. I hope the next part will be more engaging.

It's not necessary to mention the terrible use of CG (most of which could have been done with cheaper, more realistic non computer effects), because that's not really where this movie can use improvement.

While the acting is mostly good, the script is very weak. Character interactions are awkward. Their relationship seem forced, like there doesn't really look like there's enough motivation for them to stay together. The fighting scenes are really badly coordinated. With that same group and just a bit of tactics, victory would come easy (at least to enemies shown) but instead everyone fights like if they were drunk or disabled somehow; so whenever the heroes are defeated, being in good condition, it is not believable. Also, all heroes are unremarkable: the warrior is not a great fighter, the wizard cast magic sparingly or waits the worst moments to do so, the "thief" is not really stealthy or that quick on the feet, and the priest has no real divine magic or combat power (despite "being trained in combat", see the first part).

Also the name/title of the enemy seemed like inspired from a video game, thus awkward and forced... the ending felt forced as well.

In the end, unless they improve script and character development and interaction, not even "Hercules" can save this movie series...

I hadn't seen the first one, before I watched this, so I might have missed a couple of jokes or references to the first movie, but overall it worked even without the knowledge of it. It's not an acting masterpiece or a masterpiece in general, but it does what a low budget fantasy movie is supposed to do.

Some of the effects are really bad, but you can deal with it, if you want to. The stunts are decent enough for the size and budget this movie probably had and if you like what you saw here (and maybe the previous one), you will be happy to hear, there is another one coming in 2016 to conclude the trilogy ...