DRAGONHEART
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1996 Scott Renshaw
(Universal) Starring: Dennis Quaid, David Thewlis, Peter Postlethwaite, Dina Meyer, Julie Christie, voice of Sean Connery. Screenplay: Charles Edward Pogue, from a story by Pogue and Patrick Read Johnson. Producer: Rafaella DeLaurentiis. Director: Rob Cohen. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
For my money, the best joke in DRAGONHEART is one which probably was unintentional, and which works on a level entirely outside the world of the film. It is a scene in which a 10th century knight named Bowen (Dennis Quaid), an avowed dragon-slayer, confronts Draco, a computer-generated dragon voiced by Sean Connery. A dozen years earlier, Bowen watched as a dragon saved the life of his master, the young prince Einon (Lee Oakes), then watched as Einon (played as an adult by David Thewlis) became a ruthless tyrant. Convinced that Einon's malice was the result of an enchantment placed by the dragon, Bowen makes it his mission to kill the offending beast, even if he must kill them all, and now faces the last dragon still living. The joke is that, once Draco speaks, Bowen isn't instantly aware that this is the dragon he has been seeking for those twelve years. Even after that long, you'd think Sean Connery's voice would be recognizable.
Of course, that is exactly why Connery was chosen to give voice to the wise, crafty, wrongly-accused Draco. It is one of the most distinctive voices in film, a rumbling burr which can be commanding, whimsical, regal or intimate at any given time, and it allows DRAGONHEART to pull off an unexpected trick: you spend as much time listening to the dragon as you do watching it. Draco is a marvelous creation by Industrial Light and Magic, fluid and expressive, with a thoroughly unique look and style of movement, and it would have been easy enough to let it be a flashy showpiece. With Connery speaking through Draco's mouth, he actually becomes a character.
For a big-budget summer fantasy, DRAGONHEART is really a film of smaller charms like the winning characterization of Draco, like the goofy monk/would-be troubador (Peter Postlethwaite) who takes it upon himself to chronicle Bowen's exploits, like David Thewlis' snarling, reptilian villain. But there is something ever so slightly askew in director Rob Cohen's pacing which prevents DRAGONHEART from taking off into a level of pure enjoyability. None of the relationships (Bowen and Draco, Bowen and Einon, Bowen and a feisty damsel played by Dina Meyer) ever really click, the battle scenes are serviceable but perfunctory, and there are moments of Dark Ages-meets-New Age mysticism which are played with an almost cloying straightness (particularly the dewy-eyes-heavenward finale which I have seen in enough Spielberg and Spielberg-clone films to last me a lifetime).
On one level, DRAGONHEART is a rather silly and simplistic fairy tale, with a good knight, an evil king, a damsel in distress, swords and sorcery. Yet there is an interesting twist to Charles Edward Pogue's script, a redemption story involving Bowen's motivations for his dragon-dispensing activities. Though originally driven by his feelings of betrayal, that the dragon has violated a chivalric oath, Bowen has since become little more than a mercenary-for-hire, and he doesn't even realize that his attitude of righteous wrath has become a hypocrisy. That makes Bowen a complicated hero for an action-fantasy; that also makes Dennis Quaid all wrong. Quaid's sly grin has carried him far, but the reason it hasn't carried him farther is that he's never convincing when he is supposed to be in a bad mood -- the wrinkled-nosed grimace which passes for Quaid's "angry face" always look like the put-on anger of someone who is just about to burst into laughter. As a result, the rounded character of Pogue's script is flattened on the screen, and ends up seeming considerably less vibrant than his animated co-star.
For all its flaws, I was surprised how far DRAGONHEART went on the strength of that one character. TOY STORY proved that an audience could cheer for a character generated on a hard-drive, and Draco is such a character. His plight in DRAGONHEART is probably the only one which really connects, and it connects because he has both dignity and -- dare I say it -- humanity. Without Sean Connery lending an air of nobility, DRAGONHEART is yet another good-looking but empty summer spectacle; with Connery, it is a bit more fun, a bit more involving, and a bit more familiar.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 Connery roars: 6.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~srenshaw
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