I love a good dragon movie! Except when it’s about slaying dragons. Then I’m all ‘WTF, a-holes?’ I don’t get many fantasy movies in my CHC care packages so it’s a refreshing change of pace from the usual rubber guts and cheap CGI and poorly written scripts.
Well, at least this one didn’t have the rubber guts.
The Crown and the Dragon has a three-week voice over in the beginning, explaining the terrible Trelanis or Vitalians who decided to conquer nearby lands filled with Dagons or Derins (honestly, I heard every possible pronunciation of these people and I STILL don’t know what the fuck they are all called). Let’s just call them The Douchevanians and The Lameites.
Douchevanians call upon a dragon to slaughter the Lameites. After putting their Emperor in charge, anyone still loyal to the Lameite king is a traitor and will be tortured and killed. Ellen and her Aunt (Lameites) must travel on a long and perilous journey to fulfill an ancient prophecy - to find The Paladin, the only person in the world that can kill a dragon and save the Lameites. He will do this with the Felenica, which basically looks like a bedazzled Mr. Pointy.
Unfortunately, Aunt Lameite is murdered on the road and Ellen bribes a recently escaped prisoner with huge... tracts of land (literally) to escort her to her destination. Aedin, a one time Lameite soldier now smuggler with a heart of gold (wow, does this scream Malcom Reynolds to anyone else?) agrees. With the Douchevanians on their tail at every moment, can Ellen and Aedin save their people?
This was probably the most boring epic adventure fantasy movie I’ve ever seen. All the typical fantasy elements were present: black magic, treacherous journey through occupied land, magical artifacts, prissy maiden, budding affection and love between two unlikely people, blah blah. And it’s all fine because we expect this stuff in fantasy films. But when the two main characters have absolutely NO chemistry and the f/x look like a cheap computer graphics program, it’s hard to get swept up in the adventure.
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| Wait...what do you mean, 'I smell'? I DO NOT! |
The acting is also just terrible, which makes sense since the writing is awful. The little jokes and comedic moments fall completely flat and were the most unfunny parts of the movie. The fight scenes were so lackluster I assume the actors went on a 3-day bender and returned just sober enough to film. So what I’m saying is they failed on almost every front here.
The two good things about the movie were the sweeping landscape shots - which were beautiful - and the Irish folksy soundtrack. You know, tin whistles and Uilleann pipes. I love that kind of music and it fit the film very well.
Unfortunately, taken as a whole, this lame duck film isn’t really worth your time. I say skip it.
1 hatchet (out of 5)
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