DRAGONHEART
A film review by Larry McGillicuddy
Copyright 1996 Larry McGillicuddy
*** (out of 4) Directed by Rob Cohen Starring Dennis Quaid, Sean Connery, Dina Meyer, Pete Posthlewaite, Industrial Light and Magic.
Review- A movie named Eddie starring Whoopi Goldberg opened on the same weekend as Dragonheart. I didn't like it. I felt the movie took itself way too seriously. Well Dragonheart succeeds where Eddie failed. This medieval story of knights and dragons is hopelessly silly at times, but thats part of the fun.
Quaid stars as a man who has taken up the proffesion of dragonslayer after he feels he is betrayed by a dragon early in the movie. He runs into the last dragon in existence, and there is a genuinely amusing battle between the two which results in a standoff where Quaid is in the dragons mouth, but has his sword pointed at the dragons brain. Eventually, they decide to call a truce, and they work out a deal. Since he is the last dragon, he will pretend to die and Quaid will be able to get paid for it.
Their scam works at first, until they come to a town without any money. Instead the town sacrifices a girl to the dragon, but of course, Draco is a nice droagon, so he won't eat her.There is however a very amusing scene where Draco is hitting on the young girl.
Of course, as you can probably tell by the plot, this is a silly movie, but it does know when to take itself seriously at the right times, unlike Eddie, which was serious all the time. You could probably call this a medieval comedy, because there are more laughs here than in Eddie and Spy Hard combined. Dennis Quaid makes a fine hero. Pete Posthlewaite provides some ghreat comedy as a monk who journeys with them. Dina Meyer is appealing as the sacrificed girl. But lets face it, the movie is really about the dragon, and what an amazing creation he is. Connery's voice and ILM team up to provide us with a truly magnificent dragon. So, if you are going to see this movie for a strong hard core medieval epic, you are going to the wrong movie. If you are going because of the dragon, you will not be dissapointed, and you will be provided with plenty of laughs that smooth out the boring parts in the script.
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