Sometimes hitting the multiplex just isn’t in the cards. That’s when Netflix steps in to provide a movie fix. But how to separate the wheat from the chaff? I’m happy to help; every week I’ll pick a flick from the Netflix Watch Instantly section and see if it’s worth your time. This week? “Dragon Wars”.
There are some times when I can’t start a review because I haven’t figured out how to put my thoughts into words. There are some times when I can’t start a review because I don’t know what my thoughts about a film are just yet. And there are times when I can’t start a review because the movie was so scathingly awful that all I really want to do is curl into the fetal and rock back and forth for an hour or two. With Dragon Wars, it’s the latter.
This little gem has been on Netflix for quite awhile, probably in the hope that after a few years college kids will develop a drinking game based on it, and the movie will make a few bucks. But college kids aren’t that stupid. This movie is just plain bad. From the wooden acting to the incomprehensible plot to the flashbacks on flashbacks (you, sir, are no Inception), it’s rotten through and through.
The story, as much as there is one, is simple. Back about 500 years ago, a pretty little princess was born to a Korean nobleman. She was born with a birthmark, that way it’d make it super easy for the bad guy to find her. Why would they want to find her? Because she has something growing inside of her (no joke) that will come out on her twentieth birthday (I’m serious) and will save the world (honest, not making this up). So the bad guy wanted her so he can use the growing thing and turn into a dragon. But she and her boyfriend kill themselves, so the cycle continued…and came to Los Angeles. Now a low-rent journalist named Ethan must find the girl named Sarah he heard about when he was a kid, save her, and save the world. See? Simple.
Apparently this is based on real Korean mythology, but the swapping between present-day LA and Korea 500 years ago (complete with subtitles and a “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Plot” martial arts extravaganza) is confusing. The fact that the put this back and forth storyline at the beginning of the movie probably had most viewers switching over to another movie within the first fifteen minutes. But being a (glutton for punishment) professional, I endured. I wasted my time so you don’t have to. You’re welcome.
The most exciting thing about Dragon Wars is it’s poster. Check it out; pure awesome. Dragons! Destruction! The promise of cool special effects! It’s a shame that the reality is a group of actors delivering stilted, teleprompter-level dialogue in such an empty, lifeless way. With Craig Robinson from Hot Tub Time Machine as Ethan’s sidekick (and the best damn part of this movie), Elizabeth Peña as some sorta doctor/federal agent and Robert Forester as “Jack”, the mysterious guy that tells Ethan all about his “destiny”, you’d think this movie would be at least minimally watchable. No dice. Forester looks like he’s chanting “the check cleared…the check cleared” in his head, instead of focusing on actually acting. And Ms. Peña seems to be straightjacketed into a role that is nothing more than a paranoid cop throwback from the B-movies of the 50s.
What really kills this movie is no explanation of how this legendary dragon decided to move outta Korea and mosey over to the USA to re-do the legend with an all-white cast. Ethan, Sarah and Jack? All white. With no rhyme or reason. A simple sentence or two spoken by, well, anyone, telling the audience that Explanation X is the reason it’s happening in LA would work. Having Sarah be an Asian Studies major could have also worked well. Oh, and how does she afford a killer house & pool in a gorgeous area of LA? Nobody 19-year-old I’ve ever known is able to do that. But Sarah, like everyone else in Dragon Wars, is nothing but a cardboard cutout used to prop up a nothing plot ‘til the dragons make the scene.
Dragons? Oh yeah, they’re here. If you just want to kick back and watch some SyFy-quality special effects (and you have absolutely, positively nothing else in this world to do), fast-forward to the last 30 minutes. Don’t worry, you won’t miss any of the plot. I promise. But you will get to see dragons crunching on helicopters, Star Wars reject “monsters” stomping through the streets of LA, and the piece de resistance, hot dragon-on-dragon action in the most mediocre battle royale of all time. Because by theh time the dragons do battle? You will have long since stopped caring.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to watch The Lord of the Rings to wash this atrocity from my brainpan.
Here’s the breakdown:
Would I watch it again?: Absolutely not.
Should you see it?: No. Run away. Run far, run fast.
Netflix average rating: 2 ½ Stars — between “Didn’t Like It” and “Liked It”. “Kinda Didn’t Like It”, maybe?
My rating: 1 Star — “Hated It”
