Dragon Wars (2007) starring Jason Behr, Amanda Brooks, Robert Forster, Craig Robinson directed by Hyung-rae Shim Movie Review

Dragon Wars (2007)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Jason Behr in Dragon Wars (2007)

Not a Monster Smash

15 years earlier young Ethan had been in an ancient curiosity shop when something strange happened and it lead to the shop's owner telling him all about an ancient prophecy about a woman who on her 20th birthday discovering she has special powers to turn large reptiles in to monsters, powers which make her the target of some evil forces. Now Ethan find himself investigating some strange goings on in Los Angeles and coming to understand that Sarah (Amanda Brooks), a 20 year old woman, is the chosen one and he is her protector as chaos ensues with dark forces coming after her.

When I saw the artwork for "Dragon Wars" my immediate thoughts were this looks like an Asylum movie and when I saw a few familiar names in the credits such as Elizabeth Peña and Robert Forster it made me expect an Asylum style movie even more. Unfortunately "Dragon Wars" isn't what I had hoped for and ends up a boring slog of a movie which fails to grab the audience with its story surrounding an old prophecy or with the action which sees a monster battle take place in Los Angeles.

Amanda Brooks in Dragon Wars (2007)

The trouble with "Dragon Wars" is that not only is it familiar but it is not for a minute exciting. The whole build up of the shop owner with his ancient prophecy is despite some flashback visuals a yawn fest which fails to get the audience to buy in to the whole premise. That is in many ways the biggest issue because unless this old prophecy grips you what follows no matter how fancy the special effects is not going to excite. In fairness some of those effects are not bad but they mean nothing when you don't care about any of the characters which is down to the poor writing which fails to establish the characters.

But the trouble continues because for some reason the humour also fails to work. It is not that there isn't humour in the movie, there are those old lines such as "I thought you would be bigger" tossed in there but that is all they are, tossed in there and they fail to make you laugh. In many ways I can't but help think that "Dragon Wars" would have been so much more entertaining if it had been made by the same people who make the monster vs. monster type movies which fill up late night TV.

What this all boils down to is that "Dragon Wars" ends up a disappointing slog of a movie which fails to deliver on its potential to be an entertainingly bad movie.


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