Apparently, there will never be a last dragon?
In an age where Hollywood remakes are stepping over the feet of their own franchise's productions (*cough* Child's Play *cough*), one series apparently dares to keep it simple with a string of direct to video sequels, nary a theatrical reimagining in sight.
Sure, said productions are becoming primarily based upon an increasingly convoluted and contrived timeline of prequels that are clearly making up the rules of this endangered species of dragons as it goes along but, who am I to argue against a series that's on its way to out pacing "Highlander" in releases of decreasing production value.
Fromage Fridays veterans may recall I was fairly scathing in my review of "Dragonheart: Battle for the Hearthfire." To that movie's credit, it did try to shake up a formula that could have been easy to ride into oblivion while presenting some clever subversions of character the perception of character archetypes and the need for ideologies to balance off of one another but none of those positives made it any less of a joyless, dull, and irritating slog to sit through.
Conversely, "Dragonheart: Vengeance," manages to bombard me with many of the failed cliches that made me dislike that one so viciously within its first act, only to gradually reveal that its predecessor was possibly a dry run for pulling off experimentation much better here.
The tale of the Helena Bonham Carter dragon begins with the raiding and looting of meek mild mannered protagonist Lukas' family home by a gang of raggedy but organized bandits. His family slaughtered before him and his home taken from him, he seeks revenge, going into town to cross paths with the quirky sellsword Darius and following stories of a dragon in exile willing to grant requests to those presenting them with crop seeds.
That dragon in question is Siveth, a female dragon voiced by Carter, as previously stated, who is female.
Emphasizing that she's female is probably an unnecesarry tidbit of information but I figured if the movie can clumsilly do it, protagonist proclaiming in surprise "you're a girl dragon," as though a winged ice breathing scale beast with teeth larger than your arms superceeds the characteristics provided by her sex, why can't I follow suit to pursue production deal with Universal?
Admittedly, Carter's blow off response of "You see me wearing a frock?" before scaring him into submission for the stupidity of his dialogue while exacerbating his laughable lack of any heroic characteristic was more than a bit chuckle worthy but it does draw attention to the biggest underlying issue of "Dragonheart: Vengeance."
The film is rough around the edges in a way that comes close to actually being strong if its makers were willing to take another pass at it. The script is clunky in the dialogue department yet economic enough to get the story off the ground yet these actors constantly waffle between being in the groove of their characters and feeling like they're almost trying to improvise something memorable.
Nowhere is this more evident than Lukas' sellsword ally Darius, written in theory to be a drunken hedonistitc mercenary with a heart of gold but despite a strong screen presence from actor Joseph Millson, he comes across as a string of stilted deliveries trying way too hard to be quirky through non sequiturs, exuding more charisma in body language than there is charm in the words coming out of his mouth.
It's hard to nail one exact source as to what makes the first 3rd of the movie feel so rough, from slightly choppy editing to some rough direction choices, but eventually the 3 are working together to track down their bandits.
Once they begin to play off of each other during the job, "Dragonheart: Vengeance" plays its hand proper and unveils a magnificent use of the series' hallmarks and tropes to actually weave a clever narrative about differentiating vengeance from justice and the importance of seeing both sides of one story before reaching an irreversible verdict.
It's hard to go into the precise means with which the film does this, without spoiling some twists that will actually enhance the film for subsequent viewings but there's a moment, in which Lukas is forced to make a choice, with Siveth and Darius at odds over what it should be, opening a grander ethical dilemma that leads to a larger conspiracy than his own narrative that not only gave me chills but had me actively hungry for more in a way that made me wish this story was playing out over some sort of longer episodic format with meatier development for future pay off.
Jack Kane grows into his role as Lukas, Millson gets to exercise charisma and aggression in a way that's downright compelling and Carter voices the best Dragon companion of this series since Sean Connery almost two and a half decades ago, gracefully weaving between eccentric and snarky, yet wise beyond her many years, warm and kindly.
Over the course of these last 3 movies, there seems to be a real undercurrent of desire to test the waters of what kind of less predictable human narrative can be woven in this world of soulbonding mythological creatures in a British fantasy land and it could benefit from either an overarching force binding these different narratives together or a total separation of them that's unhindered by the status of dragons as a rare species.
Perhaps I'm overthinking the potential this series could achieve under certain circumstances but "Dragonheart: Vengeance's" ability to surprise me with that level of investment that I didn't even know I had until the credits were rolling has me simultaneously mildly frustrated, yet oddly inspired.
3 out of 4 Shatners
Bottom Line: "Dragonheart: Vengeance" is far from a fantasy masterpiece but its more clever and earnest than it has any right to be and makes me really miss the age when these sort of mid-tier genre productions weren't afraid to run theatrically.
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