User Reviews

First thing i did after watching this movie was go on the internet to see if it actually was the pilot to Midnight the series i'd been watching. Unfortunately this wasn't the case which has left me with a very unsatisfied feeling. You do get a good introduction into the world of Midnight, but when you feel the story is just about to take off the ending credits start playing. I just hope the makers of this movie see the actual potential of the story and decide that they have made a pilot after all and not a film that has to carry its own weight.

The acting actually wasn't too bad and the sceneries combined with the computer generated settings gave the movie an authentic feel.

The costumes are great and the overall setting well crafted. Except for the the cheap below TV quality recording the look of the movie is really good. The acting is very mixed, some characters are played well, but most actors are as uninspired as the pace of the movie which drags on and on.

I agree with the other comments about this movie, there are some good ideas in the story but they aren't played out. For a hundred minutes you wait for something to happen that's being hinted on and then the movie is through after a short and totally meaningless "climax" that makes you think: Was the whole movie just a character introduction?

The high rating of this movie on IMDb comes as a big surprise. I only gave it 3/10 as a thank you for the costumes and scenery and because I am in a very good mood while typing this. I think the other voters are the actors of the movie who received a bonus to come here and give it a good rating ;).

Yesterday I tried to watch "Midnight Chronicles" along three hours. This film is so boring that I slept and was able to see less than forty minutes.

The pretentious story begins with a narrative, telling that the Dark God Izrador was cast out from heaven to Earth, raising a realm of shadows in the north. After the third war, Izrador defeats the people of south and begins his kingdom of darkness using legates and the beasts named orcs to control the populations.

Unfortunately the promising beginning of this low-budget film goes to nowhere and the awful screenplay does not develop characters and situations that are thrown in the screen.

Today I have finally finished watching "Midnight Chronicles" and this flick is lame. There is no action, there are ham actors and actresses, and the camera uses closes of the faces of actors and actress like in soap operas.

I have surprisingly found that there are good reviews in IMDb, but they are fake and if the reader pays attention, he or she will see that the foregoing reviews belong to authors with only one review published in IMDb to promote this film and lure the readers. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): "Crônicas da Meia-Noite" ("Midnight Chronicles")

I gave this such a high score because I could not believe it only had a 3.5 rating and I want to see a sequel. Most low budget films are barely worth watching; bad dialog, bad CG, etc. Those who think this is bad; either have never seen a truly bad movie or have a very short attention span. I admit there is some bad dialog and some badly delivered dialog in this movie. If you want lots of action and bad CG effects, then this movie is not for you. That being said, this is a great movie for people who enjoy fantasy. Hell, take out the Orks and Elves and you still have a good movie. Don't expect a lot of action just good entertainment. My only regret is that it ended; I want to see more.

Picture a world very similar to that of Tolkien's Middle Earth. You've got orcs, elves, a dark bad guy much like Sauron and everything but with one significant twist: 100 years ago, the bad guy won. This is the world of Midnight Chronicles.

Some context: this world first appear as a "Campaign setting" for the Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying game. A campaign setting, for the non-initiated simply being a world backdrop for your game adventures.

Christian T. Petersen is primarily known as the president of Fantasy Flight Games, a company that excels at making various board games, roleplaying games and also imports and translates several amazing board games from Europe. This is his first foray as a director and although I've seen worse, there really is a sense that he did not have the technical knowledge to pull this extremely ambitious project.

There are a few positives, though. Charles Hubbell is pretty good in the role of the main character, Mag Kiln. The character has a little bit of Shades of grey but essentially, is an envoy of "the bad guy". As such, it is fascinating because usually, protagonists in epic fantasy are clearly "good guys". The only other actor who is decent is Sam L. Landman who plays Kruce. He is Mag Kiln's sidekick and definitely has the best lines in the movie and injects a bit of wit in what is otherwise an overly dramatic affair. The rest of the cast ranges from decent to really bad. The writing doesn't help either. Many of the characters are bland stereotypes, while others do seem to have depth which is ruined by a confusing plot.

And this is what basically kills any hope this movie has: the story overfeeds us with awkward plot exposition. There are several characters to keep track of but few are given enough attention for us to care. It has been said Midnight Chronicles was to act as a calling card, a pilot for a potential TV series and this shows. After all these characters are presented and a plot that moves very slowly, the movie ends abruptly on a less than thrilling sequence. As if you had to put "DVD2" in your player.

It's a little heartbreaking for me to review this labor of love. The attempt at making a darker fantasy is laudable. And although the whole movie looks amateurish, it must have cost the producers (8 of them, including Petersen) an arm and a leg. The introduction sequence alone features tons of extras on a road. There are horse scene, several sets were build and the 3D is amateurish but still pretty.

It all comes down to writing, acting and direction. I can feel the love in this independent project but the skills are lacking. Here's hoping it's still picked for a TV series as there is much potential if additional writers tighten this up.

I'll keep this short since I've wasted enough time watching this movie. I had to register just to inform those fortunate enough to have not seen this movie yet to stay away. To put it kindly, this movie made both Dungeons and Dragons movies blockbuster hits. But that is even an insult as I somewhat enjoyed the first D&D movie. Hell, even Wing Commander movie was 100 times better than this.

Drawn out, shoved down your throat, story. Action sequences (3 that I remember) were less than a minute or two long. Acting no better than watching a high school skit. The makeup and special effects is where the most money used to make this film went into.

I agree that most of the set designs were pretty good for a low budget fantasy movie. Some of the actors were good but there were some notably terrible ones as well. The writing was horrific. Worst of all was the number of times they referred to "the Legate" or "legates" OMFG it should have stuck out like a sore thumb during the editing process at the very least and should have been caught after the first draft of the screenplay. My friends and I were cackling and wincing every time they said the word. If it were a drinking contest we would have died of alcohol poisoning.

Aside from that, almost NOTHING HAPPENS for the first 70 minutes of the film. The opening slate has a poorly written quotation that is subsequently negated by an overly long and rambling voice over that fails to explain much or move the story forward.

I've played plenty of RPG's and love fantasy fiction but could not love this dog. Avoid it.

Coming into this film, I had no pretensions. I am only somewhat familiar with the Midnight RPG that this is based on, and I must admit, the setting is one of the best parts about this deathly slow film. At an hour and forty minutes, it certainly feels its length.

Set in a kingdom held under the weight of a near eternal darkness, the bulk of the story follows a 'Legate', a sort of warrior/mage that are the inquisitors of the world, doing the bidding of the godlike 'Darkness'. There is a lot of mythology in the story, way to much for its ambitions. I found the setting to be tantalizing and evocative. The filmmakers used most of their budget on moody VFX shots of cityscapes filled with towers and castles, but left little for the costumes and actors. I swear, most of the actors in the film were culled from the nearest community theater where the film was shot. With the exception of the darkly intriguing Charles Hubbel as the Legate Mag Kiln, none of the actors are interesting in the least.

In the end, the film really does try to tell an intrigue laden story, but it is constantly sabotaged by its own ambitions. This story and world may have worked in the hands of a better director, better actors and a more coherent, less busy script. If you're interested, check it out, otherwise skip it.

This is a bad movie. The dialogue is stilted and unbelievable. The acting uniformly drab and uninspired. This film has all the warmth of a sub-arctic glacier. Never have pixies, elves, dwarfs and trolls been less appealing. The producers came up with the novel idea of substituting seemingly endless monologues for any kind of real action. The writers must have done most of their work in their parent's basements. Save your time and your money and watch some Beverly Hill Billies reruns. Watching Surf Ningas will be a life reaffirming experience in comparison to the excruciating exercise of watching this film to its dreary ending If you have never played a role playing game this movie will convince you not to.

For a low budget film I thought this was actually quite well done. It was 10x the film the Dungeon and Dragon movies were, and makes all the Uwe Boll films look pathetic in comparison *cough*Bloodrayne*cough*.

What I particularly liked was they didn't waste a red cent on horribly mediocre stunt work, and pointless fight scenes with silly explosions. They stuck to the story, and clearly knew their limitations. I'd put this film slightly above the much larger budgeted Eragon, and it left me wanting more, not wishing I had the last 2 hours of my life back.

I look forward to a sequel to this fanfilm'esquire first attempt, or at least get more substantial directorial work for Christian Petersen.

This movie was apparently supposed to be a television series based on a pretty good fantasy role playing game that I am vaguely familiar with. Considering that White Wolf had their short lived, but popular Vampire series, I suppose this wasn't a vain hope.

Midnight Chronicles does violate one huge tenant of all good fantasy literature: make one of the characters unfamiliar with the world, so it can be explained to the audience slowly and clearly. If Midnight Chronicles had a Richard Cypher from the non-magical country next door, or a hobbit from the shire, or a Harry Potter who grew up with Muggles or a Gen who comes from a small village on a remote island, or a Paul Atreides who must attend his lessons, or a Buck Rogers from the 20th century, etc. If there was one character who was as lost as me going into it, then it would be fixed.

It only got a 6 because it is a B grade fantasy adventure movie in the grand tradition of Hawk The Hunter, but Midnight Chronicles is better than most of the stuff that get's on TV. Sets and costumes and makeup were decent. Acting was kind of goth and pretentious for film, but better than a lot of TV shows. Even the orc masks were pretty good. Other than violating the "one character must be ignorant" rule, I can see no reason this wasn't picked up for a series. So I wish the best to everyone still pulling for this project.

MIDNIGHT CHRONICLES is a Cosplay fan's version of THE LORD OF THE RINGS, complete with elves, orcs, and dark lords, and not an ounce of sense to go with it. This is an amateur night production with very little to recommend it, mired as it is in a sea of poor writing, even worse acting, and a general lack of cohesion that makes it a real chore to sit through.

Occasionally - and only occasionally - the film offers up some not-bad visuals that would have been at home in the Jackson trilogy, but for most of the time it's embarrassingly inept. The orcs in particular are silly-looking, full-grown guys wearing what looks like Halloween masks. The narrative is slow moving, lack in incident and spectacle, and there's nary any action to get excited about either. Yeah, it's a waste of time on the part of the viewer and effort on the part of the film-makers.

I'm glad to hear that most of the issues were people wanting to see more, not less. *Grin*

This was originally the first 2 episodes of a series, and last I heard they're still wanting to pursue the series if they can get funding. I'm hoping they will as there's so much still to develop, (and on the selfish side, my character's development scenes got pushed back for later episodes...)

Here's hoping. :) And to those that liked what they saw, Thanks so much for the kind words! :) And to those that didn't, I hope that knowing it's a TV series and wasn't originally intended to be a stand-alone movie, helps.

Thanks again,

Jeffrey AKA Doucan

Also, note that, While I was in this film, and am obviously biased, I don't get any kind of recompense if anyone buys the film. :) No Union contract for me :) hehe...

This fantasy movie is set in a world where the bad guys won. Consequently, most of the running time is describing what the bad guys are doing. Good guys also appear, but they are not the main characters. This whole set-up is a refreshing break from the whole lot of other genre movies clinging to the hero all the time. It's a shame that apparently many reviews are rather negative because many people wouldn't want a picture outside the frame of the usual clichés. The effects and acting have the quality of a TV series, not a zillion dollar blockbuster, but since we all watch TV series, too, I don't think that should be much of a problem. I enjoyed the movie - except the sudden ending, without a sequel for me to see. The makers of such movies deserve more praise, I'd say.

I wasn't sure about this movie when I initially rented it. I hadn't heard any reviews, but I am a big fan of Fantasy movies in general so I thought I would check it out. This movie surprised me. Although I figured it for a low-budget film, since I hadn't heard of it, it didn't have the problems of many other low-budget films. Some other low-budget films fail to capture your attention, either from bad acting or bad sets. This movie had none of those, as it had very good acting (although I didn't recognize any of them) and the story was compelling to me. One other thing low-budget films usually suffer from is convincing the viewer that there is an entire world that exists, rather than a few dozen people running around trying to make the pretense of a larger world. This film succeeded in burying me in the illusion of the world they created and the story that they were telling.

I really hope that they make a sequel, so I can see the rest of the story. It would be a shame if they stop making movies like this, just because a few people don't get what they are trying to make.

Not bad..I enjoyed it...don't get me wrong...I am a very picky person when it comes to movies. The best ones I've seen in the last couple of years, just to give you a taste of where I am coming from, are movies such as Sin Nombre, Children of Men, Let the right one in and Pan's Labyrinth just to name a few. I am starving for Fantasy movies such as this one. I don't know why for the life of me there has not been any good movies of this genre lately, I would think these type of movies would make a whole lot of money. Can we get a proper Ad&d movie at least?? PLEASE!!! LOTR was okay...but cmon..really? that's the best you can do with that kind of budget...This movie has a lot of potential...if it is the first part of a series but, If it's a stand alone then ughh Ill give it a 4 of 10...please please do not tell me this is a one parter....that's all i wanted to say...

I loved the story of the film. They did a great job in turning a roleplaying game into a film and I think the acting was fantastic. I do not think it deserves the low score it had received. The cameras looked cheap however the film plot was brilliant and interesting. This is a must see film for any roleplaying fans (like myself) out there. It was one of the few films where I have been distracted. Loved every second of it and wished there was more of the fantastic story.

The plot was solid and everything seemed to be explained brilliantly. This film is hard to flaw. The story can see to drag and it is not recommended for those who want an action film as you will not get this.

I had to write a review as all others are in my opinion unfair. The budget of a movie isn't everything. Besides, high budget films at the cinema are not always great, even the opposite.

Costumes and atmosphere: one of the reasons why I loved that movie is that the costumes, atmosphere and landscapes were great so you really feel immersed.

Storyline: The story was really good and ambitious even if it was naturally difficult to show everything with a lower budget.

Actors: The main actors were great like Mag and Chuzara. The actress who played the Oracle was also ABSOLUTELY amazing. Actually, in my opinion, they were better than some of the best paid actors in the world so...

So to sum up, the fact that it was low budget did prevent the team from doing everything they wanted to do but everything was good otherwise and I really enjoyed this movie.