DVD Review; Unicorn City (2012)

 Table-top gamer Voss (Devin McGinn) is feeling a bit fed up of late. After losing his job in the gaming industry he's working at a Taco shop and living with his brother - who tends to solve issues with chokeholds.
  To cap it all, Voss has just been booted out of his regular gaming group by dickhead GM Shadowhawk (John Gries).
  And his sword has been confiscated.

 There is a small glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel though. If he can demonstrate leadership qualities, then gaming titans Warlocks Of The Beach  might give him a job in Seattle.
  With the aid of gal-pal Marsha (Jaclyn Hales) and best mate Clancy (Matt Mattson), our slacker hero hatches a cunning plan. He will create his own Utopia where tapletop gamers can let their imaginations run free.
 It shall be known as Unicorn City.

  Basically the whole film revolves around somebody inventing Live Action Role Playing. Thing is, that's already been around for at least 25 years. It's fairly big, well-organised and popular with people who aren't the stereotypical "nerd" loser.
 I'm guessing the film-makers didn't know any of this.

  Moving on from that, it's not exactly easy to root for main-man Voss. I know he's supposed to be the classic slacker stroke geek stroke loser that comes good in the end but there's no getting around the fact that for most of the film he's an utter dick. I really struggled to see what the lovely Marsha saw in him.
  Admittedly he gets much better at the end of the film but wouldn't it have been better if he'd actually displayed some likable qualities before then?
 Given that he utterly fails to notice how much Marsha is into him, the boy is also clearly dumb as pondweed.

  On the plus side, Marsha and Clancy are rather more likeable, the arrival of "Centaur" Rhubarb is verging on epic and while Unicorn City isn't what you'd call hilarious, it's cast are talented, the film moves along decently enough and it remains watchable throughout.
  If you like Indie comedies then you might like this. If you want a better LARPing movie, try "Knights Of Badassdom" instead -  it's much funnier and the wonderful Peter Dinklage is in it.  

 And now some screenshots.

  Voss and Marsha share a fantasy sequence. 

The entire SFX budget went into this one scene.

He starts singing in a minute. Just because.

If your family is prone to this sort of thing, please move out immediately. 

Jaclyn Hales.

If there was an award for "Actress Who Looks The Most Like Katherine Heigl 

Without Actually Being Katherine Heigl" , then Jaclyn is definitely in with a shot.

Or is that just me? 

Behold the Plastic Pipe Of Power

Voss gets some quality emoting in. 

Centaurs indahouse, bitches. 

A picture that makes sense in context. 

Marsha tries a spot of interpretative dance.

Which leads to...

Possibly the most awkward dance-off in cinema history. 

Shadowhawk shows up to stick his oar in. Twat. 

Screw it. Let's finish with some more Marsha pics.  

 One of the secrets to successful blogging is to find a niche and exploit it.

In this case I'm going after the small, underappreciated "Elves in Glasses" fandom. 

Trailer here.

That's all folks.