Dragon Wars: D-War

Well nobody could ever accuse Hyung-rae Shim of not having watched just about every dragon movie ever made! Just about every one of them from "Dragonheart" (1996) to "Dungeons and Dragons" (2000) via "Lord of the Rings", "Harry Potter" and quite possibly "Dr. Who" - as well as an whole slew of Chinese anime - appear to have inspired this special effects feast that could actually serve a very important social function. Have we ever considered the benefits of employing some hungry monsters to rid us of some shocking acting talent? It's all over in a flash and there is no evidence to trouble anyone who bothers to enquire just what happened to the likes of Jason Behr and Amanda Brooks. The story, not that it really matters, is all about her being a mystical birth that only happens every five centuries and that empowers her with skills to control the mightiest dragon of their age. Of course, this can't just be plain sailing so we have to have a baddie borrowed from ancient Chinese mythology who is determined to capture and sacrifice her so he can be the big boss instead. Flicking between antiquity and modern day, we follow the challenges faced by "Sarah" (Brookes) and by her unlikely knight in shining armour "Ethan" (Behr) as they face an array of fire-breathing and menacing special effects. To be fair to the visual effects folks, they have done a really quite impressive job in crafting and animating the elongated Chinese dragons but they are easily the only things that stand out in this otherwise exercise in expensive banality. The quality of the acting is all rather summed up by Elizabeth Peña's awful effort as a Fed trying to convince her superiors that the urban devastation being caused is down to a dragon from ages past but special mention also has to go to the floppy haired Behr who is simply terrible from start to finish. Clearly cash wasn't an issue here, and there is plenty of richness from the history to provide us with a fertile base for this tale, but sadly nobody has bothered to put any meat on the bones of the characters or the plot and with any hint of jeopardy long since abandoned by the end, I felt this shockingly disappointing.