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'Dragon Wars' movie review |
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Written by John Monaghan, MCT
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Monday, 17 September 2007 |
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DRAGON WARS
1 star
Rated PG-13; creature action
Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes
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The only winners in "Dragon Wars" are the computer-imaging geeks who must have logged tons of overtime. The rest of the world is left scratching its head at a monster epic so dismal that it doesn't even register as a guilty pleasure.
According to legend, every 500 years a maiden must be sacrificed before her 20th birthday. If not, dragons will wreak havoc on the land.
For the first half hour, the film plays like two movies in one, jumping from "Crouching Tiger" martial arts levitation and gauzy cinematography to straight-to-video monster mayhem in Los Angeles.
With nods to "Godzilla" and "King Kong," the story finds TV news reporter Ethan (Jason Behr) on the trail of the mysterious Sarah (Amanda Brooks), because, as a kid, he was zapped by a bright light emanating from an antique trunk.
Things grow more confusing in the second half, but filmmaker Hyung-rae Shim's only concern is giving viewers their money's worth in slick, sterile CGI battles.
The performances are beyond awful. Behr is a poor man's Tom Cruise; Brooks barely registers as his damsel in distress. TV vet Robert Forster uses up all that good will he earned for "Jackie Brown" a decade ago in the hammy role of Ethan's shape-shifting mentor.
By the time it gets to the battle of the dragons, Good Imoogi and Dark Imoogi, I couldn't even tell you which was which. In a movie already choked by mindless action, did we really need an army of evil warriors fresh from "Power Rangers"?
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