A good piece of family entertainment.
This is one of those regular fantasy films that were a hit when they hit television during the 90s, becoming a fairly regular presence on weekend afternoons and holidays. Easily appealing to children and young people, it is a family film that entertains and moves.
The film is set in an uncertain period of the Middle Ages, in a legendary European kingdom where the young and cruel Einon reigns with an iron fist and no heart. As a teenager, his life had been saved by a dragon that gave him half of its own heart. Now, he ignores his master's lessons of honor and bravery, and rules like a tyrant. However, the population is fed up with his excesses and Bowen, the king's former tutor, decides to lead the revolt against him with the help of a dragon, the last one still alive, and precisely the one that saved the king.
I'm not going to waste a lot of time on this film because it's far from being a relevant work for those involved, even though its popularity at the time was remarkable. There are many nice and well done things in this film, starting with the script. Yes, it's a cheesy story, it looks a lot like Robin Hood and other like that, it's full of clichés and the humor is, to say the least, off-putting. But the truth is that it entertains and has enough fantasy and emotion to delight us. There are some good fight scenes, the castle attack sequence is exciting and intense, the special effects and the CGI (a new technology, at the time) used are quite worthy and do a very good job considering the time and resources. We also have excellent cinematography and a memorable soundtrack, truly epic, which was then used for a thousand and one uses, as we know.
The actors, despite not shining, make a credible effort and are reasonably committed. There are some well-known names here, starting with the dragon's voice, lent by the unmistakable Sir Sean Connery, in one of the best voice dubbing work done by him. Dennis Quaid was capable enough in the role of a mature hero, already not very young, but it is the quality of David Thewlis that surprises us and steals all the attention. The actor brought the perfidious King Einon to life in a truly remarkable way, with commitment and emotion, giving him touches of cynicism, sadism and madness. I have a very strong feeling that Thewlis drew his inspiration from Peter Ustinov's wonderful performance in “Quo Vadis”, in the role of Nero. Finally, Pete Postlethwaite seems to really enjoy the character he was lucky enough to play, a friendly monk with the air of a great troubadour.
Unfortunately, I didn't like Dina Meyer at all: she doesn't make an effort for her character and the romantic chemistry with Quaid is absolutely nil. I also missed the contextualization, in time and space: as the film is pure fantasy, we don't even have the notion of a concrete place or time, in order to be able to copy clothes, technologies, architecture. Although the movie had good sets and costumes, I can't say that I really liked them because they were too fanciful.
