Let us try to imagine the scene in the studio executive’s office –
‘I’ve got this great idea for a movie – it’s a retelling of Moby Dick, except it’s a giant white dragon, and it’s set in this fantastical world. And Vinnie Jones is in it.’
‘Sounds pretty good so far,’ says the Exec. ‘How about bringing a little class to it – any chance of getting Morgan Freeman on board to play Ahab?’
‘Not sure about that,’ replies the moron. ‘I think he might be busy with March of Penguins 2: Back in the Habit. How about Danny Glover instead? It worked for Saw.’
‘Hmmmmmm,’ says the Exec, ‘okay, but I’ll have to knock a million off the budget.’
‘I shouldn’t worry about that, it just means a million less to recoup at the box office… ‘
On the back of last year’s How to Train Your Dragon, this was the perfect opportunity to keep the momentum going and make dragons cool again. Gone are the days of Q the Winged Serpent and Pete’s Dragon, these days it’s all Eragon and Reign of Fire. And now this utter dross, an early but surefire contender for the year’s worst film. With the lethal combination of amateurish direction, hideous scriptwriting, and atrocious acting, Age of the Dragons was always doomed to the same fate as poor old Ahab – it never had a leg to stand on.
Suspicions are raised early – always be wary of a film that blows its monstrous money-shot before the titles have even gone up. From the opening minute it’s clear that director Ryan Little has no grasp of suspense, psychology, or standard convention whatsoever. As a young Ahab laughably swipes his tiny dagger at the CGI dragon in the opening minute, it’s clear that the following eighty-nine are going to test even the most liberal of moviegoers.
After this, the story follows protagonist Ishmael (Corey Sevier), who joins Ahab’s crew to hunt dragons for their Vitriol, a bodily fluid used as fuel. But Ahab, of course, brings their lives into jeopardy with his obsession of finding the illusive white dragon. It sounds like there could be some imaginative stuff in there, but as the film plods along, the script pulls out every generic plot–point you can imagine, from clumsy characterization (we get it, she’s tough – we don’t need to see some impromptu kung-fu fighting with the film’s only Asian character), to events so mind-bogglingly predictable you’ll be left wondering if the team behind this are just taking the mick. Yes, this is storytelling at its worst. Not to mention the dialogue, which serves as the only point of amusement, but for all the wrong reasons – ‘You were like a son to me!’ Glover’s Ahab cries as he happily plunges a knife deep into his shipmate.
It’s such a shame too, as there is potential behind this reworking of Moby Dick. But the reimagining is all wrong – the setting is sub-Lord of the Rings, the characters bereft of the original’s sympathies, and as for the updated ship, the Pequod – it’s not entirely unlike but nowhere near as impressive as the Lost Boy’s raft in Hook. And so slow and ineffective that it is easily followed by some rubbish villains. On foot.
None of this is helped by the actors of course, who are mostly appalling. Not that the material is much to work with to be fair. Leading man Sevier is as bland as a dry slice of bread, and Danny Glover grunts and gurns ludicrously as the oddball Ahab. And though love interest Sofia Pernas brings a little eye-candy to the proceedings, she is so impossibly beautiful and immaculate in the quasi-medieval setting that she just adds to the lunacy of it all. It comes to something when Vinnie Jones is the best thing in the movie.
In some ways, Age of the Dragons is worth seeing just to appreciate how utterly awful it is. Though that’s easy for a film journalist to say – we get into these movies for free.
To the team behind this mess – shame on you, the dragon movie may have just become extinct.
