Released: 2002
Rating: PG-13
Length: Approx. 2 hrs.
Cast: Christian Bale, Matt McConaughey,
Izabella Scorpco, Alexander Siddig
I am a lover
of reptiles, dragons, mutant monsters...you name it. If it's scaly, breathes
fire and can kick some serious butt I like it. On that note I went into this
film hoping that it would be, if not an outstanding piece of cinematic fare,
at least an entertaining two hours with men, monsters and peril.
I really
am stunned just how bad it was.
But I am
getting ahead of myself. Let us begin by telling the general story. A
young boy named Quinn goes to see his momsy in her workplace underground in
some tunnel in London. There he snoops around for a while and smells something
funny, or maybe he just thought he saw something. I can't really remember.
Anyway he sees some flaming eggs in some gooey crap, and then before you know
it...he gets spit on by a nasty looking dragon hiding in a corner! Right in
the eyes too...lucky the little squirt didn't go blind. Well, he runs like
madness to warn his mumsy, and before they can escape in the lift, as they
like to say in England, the big bruiser comes after them and scorches the
place to ruins, killing Quinn's mother. There's a brief shot of the dragon's
eye looking at Quinn, who it mysteriously leaves alone, and that's kind of
creepy. This will be explained in greater detail later.
Well, then
something really...I repeat...REALLY STUPID HAPPENS!!!! They have a
narrative that tells of how after that incident the world is suddenly overrun
by dragons; thousands upon thousands of dragons, and for every one they kill
another hundred take their place. They tell basically of the fall of
humankind, how we become the endangered species of the world. The stupid part
is, instead of showing us a stunning visual aid to this narrative, they
simply, I kid you not, show us stock footage from the second world war. I am
not kidding. The atomic explosions, old soldiers and tanks and stuff...no
dragons, no images of them dominating the world, except for a brief shot of
London I think which is where the hoard has collected, and in all a very
ineffective and unsatisfying way to bring the audience up to speed on the
condition of the storyline.
If that
wasn't bad enough, we barely ever see the freaking things.I can remember every
dragon scene because there were so few. Now the creatures themselves were
brilliantly animated and very terrifyingly cool, but like George Lucas once
said, "You can't have a good special effect without a good story."
How true. The story gets interesting to some small degree when an American
comes along to what's left of Quinn's base of operations, named Van Zam or
something like that. Anyway he looks like the kind of guy who should have a
VAN before his last name. shaved bald, muscular, chewing on the same small
cigar stub through the entire film. Makes him look tough, I guess. Quinn
reluctantly lets this American dog (that's another thing...always we Americans
are looked down by Brits in films like this as cocky, arrogant, snide jerks
who want to push everybody around. Hey, that's only on Mondays!) stay at their
dragon killing center, which is basically an old abandoned castle out in the
middle of nowhere land.
Van Zam says
he has a plan to take out the dragons. Dragons have very good eyesight, but
for some reason it's even better at night. The problem for them is that
they can't see at all at dusk when the sun is setting, which doesn't make much
sense to me, but what do I know? Also there is only one male; the same bull
that Quinn saw as a child in the underground tunnel. They reason that if the
male is killed the species is gone...kapoot, finida, all gone. Yeah, right!
What about the thousands upon thousands of other female dragons that would be
left over? No, they'll magically disappear once the male is gone! That's the
plan, and Quinn don't want to go after the Big Boy. You see, he still has
traumatic memories of his mumsy being killed by the beast, and he reasons that
if they go after the bull he'll follow them back to the castle and wipe out
the women and children left over from the scattered humanity that they
collected along the way.
Forgetting
Quinn, Mr. Macho American goes out to take on the Bull full force, and not
surprisingly he gets all his fancy weapons and tanks wiped out. He survives
along with his chick side commander, who seems to have a thing for Quinn
(gag), and they go back to try and convince Quinn to go with them to London
and take out the nest for good and all. He of course is royally ticked (and
rightly so) that they went to fight the dragon, because just as he had
predicted the beasty followed the soldiers back to the castle and killed
Quinn's best friend, as well as causing some decent collateral damage. But now
Quinn is on fire (no pun intended) to roast some lizard, and off we go to
London.
You see, that whole
thing earlier with the Bull sparing Quinn's life in the elevator...well, they
figure this some kind of omen that he is meant to kill the bull, and that he
alone can do it. So they easily sneak into the city, easily find a spot to
kill him, easily...yeah, you know the rest.
There were some
very clever moments in the film. Because there is no TV or movies anymore in
this bleak future, Quinn and his friend resort to acting out famous films from
their generation on a stage for the children of the survivors. The thus do the
infamous Luke and Darth fight from the Empire Strikes Back, sending children
into shock when they discover that, "Luke, I am your father!" Other
than that the only thing I can give this film credit for is that Quinn and his
love interest don't get personal, not even a kiss, which is refreshing
since that makes these movies so much more cheesy than they already are. And
the dragons, as I said, are visually stunning and very cool, but the only
problem is that they aren't very original in their design. They look like a
cross between Draco from Dragonheart and Rodan from Toho. Other than that they
make the film.
I personally don't
recommend wasting your time with this film unless you are a die hard dragon
lover. It is boring and painful otherwise. Worth one look, and after that it
pretty much becomes a title that fades into obscurity in the back of your
mind. The ending also was so unmemorable I'm surprised I still do remember it.
Basically an anti climax within a climax, if that's possible...
1/2 I
can't say that the term story really applies to what drives this film.