Monday, August 29, 2011

Dragonheart

Starring Dennis Quaid, Pete Postelthwaite, David Thewlis, and the voice of Sean Connery as Draco

Directed by Rob Cohen

Release Date: May 31st, 1996

Nowhere near as bad as 2000's Dungeons and Dragons, but certainly not as memorable as Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

For years I had heard this was an unappreciated gem, a tale of a knight in need of redemption and the last dragon. Sadly, I found that Dragonheart is a mis-mash of ideas, cliches and errors in logic. First of all, the tone is all over the place; one minute it's a heart pounding action movie, the next it's a wacky comedy, and then it's trying (desperately) to add in some pathos and drama to little avail. I understand the need to lighten the mood, but there are several times where Bowen (Quaid)'s arrogance and smug attitude felt like left over dialogue from Army of Darkness. Second, David Thewlis's Einon is a terrible villain. In the years since Dragonheart, Thewlis has gone on to show great performances in the Harry Potter series and in Kingdom of Heaven. Here, he's playing a 20-ish spoiled brat who takes over his father's throne and chews scenery like nobody's business. We're told that there was once good in him and that he was corrupted. Obviously, the film shows us that he was always bad; what the screenwriters should have done is show Einon as a kind-hearted child and then gradually show more and more of his cruelty. Instead, they show him immediately twirling his mustache as soon as the crown was his.

On the positive side, the supporting cast give great performances, especially Pete Postlethwaite as Brother Gilbert.

Dragonheart could have been a great movie, but has some flaws.

Click here to buy Dragonheart - Collector's Edition Dragonheart

Rating: * * * of  5 

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