This movie had me on the edge of my seat with its breathtaking special effects and breakneck pace. However, be prepared to leave your desire for a tight storyline and interesting dialog at home. After a railroad crew accidentally unearths a dragon's lair, Quinn, the young son of a railroad engineer, unwittingly wakes the sleeping dragon, who then promptly escapes its underground prison to breed at an unfathomable rate. The dragons then proceed to unleash a reign of terror and fire upon the land.
The living creatures on planet Earth are decimated almost to extinction in a matter of years not only by the dragons, but also through the stupidity of the various governments of the world, who in the end try to nuke the reptiles to death but only succeed in creating a virtual all-you-can-eat buffet of the very ash that the dragons apparently need to eat in order to survive. Oh, and please don't ask how the planet escaped any kind of nuclear winter or radiation poisoning.
Cut to 18 years later and we find our little Quinn has survived into adulthood, a man who speaks worse English as a man than he did as a boy. Played by the talented Christian Bale, Quinn is now just a pale, hollow-faced husk of a man in charge of a quasi-fortress in a Northern England castle filled with survivors intent on outliving the damnable beasts. There's a wonderful moment of levity early on where Quinn and his friend Creedy act out the infamous lightsaber fight between Luke and Darth Vader at the end of "Empire Strikes Back" for a gasping and transfixed audience of children.
Enter the ugly American, played by an over-the-top Matthew McConaughey, who literally grunts through most of the movie as Denton, a pumped-up, tattooed George C. Scott on steroids (Patton cigar and all), who arrives by tank with a small militia of dragon slayers to save the day. His female sidekick, Alex, commands a helicopter and crew of "bolo men" (a gladiator term from ancient Rome) called Archangels, whose job it is to skydive at an alarming speed and net the wings of the dragon who would fall to earth and be blown to bits by Denton's rocket launcher. Sound like fun? Well, given that their life expectancy is 17 seconds after they leave the chopper, I would say "Nay."
The dragons were really the stars of this picture. Incredible animation and special effects truly bring these frightening creatures to life, Jurassic Park style. All in all, an entertaining film, albeit short on substance. I give it a solid B.
The living creatures on planet Earth are decimated almost to extinction in a matter of years not only by the dragons, but also through the stupidity of the various governments of the world, who in the end try to nuke the reptiles to death but only succeed in creating a virtual all-you-can-eat buffet of the very ash that the dragons apparently need to eat in order to survive. Oh, and please don't ask how the planet escaped any kind of nuclear winter or radiation poisoning.
Cut to 18 years later and we find our little Quinn has survived into adulthood, a man who speaks worse English as a man than he did as a boy. Played by the talented Christian Bale, Quinn is now just a pale, hollow-faced husk of a man in charge of a quasi-fortress in a Northern England castle filled with survivors intent on outliving the damnable beasts. There's a wonderful moment of levity early on where Quinn and his friend Creedy act out the infamous lightsaber fight between Luke and Darth Vader at the end of "Empire Strikes Back" for a gasping and transfixed audience of children.
Enter the ugly American, played by an over-the-top Matthew McConaughey, who literally grunts through most of the movie as Denton, a pumped-up, tattooed George C. Scott on steroids (Patton cigar and all), who arrives by tank with a small militia of dragon slayers to save the day. His female sidekick, Alex, commands a helicopter and crew of "bolo men" (a gladiator term from ancient Rome) called Archangels, whose job it is to skydive at an alarming speed and net the wings of the dragon who would fall to earth and be blown to bits by Denton's rocket launcher. Sound like fun? Well, given that their life expectancy is 17 seconds after they leave the chopper, I would say "Nay."
The dragons were really the stars of this picture. Incredible animation and special effects truly bring these frightening creatures to life, Jurassic Park style. All in all, an entertaining film, albeit short on substance. I give it a solid B.