Dragon Hunter

Directed by: Steve Shimek

Starring: Brad Johnson, Erik Denton, Isaac Singleton Jr, Kelly Stables.

Synopsis:

Kendrick and his young brother Darius come from a family of Dragon Hunters, although they were orphaned at a young age. Kendrick is very protective of his brother and hunts Orcs that get too close to their village. One night, their village is attacked by a dragon which lays waste to the whole area. Kendrick and Darius manage to escape and cross paths with another group of Orc hunters. Joining forces they face many dangers together as they traverse the great forest, heading for Ocard, where they can hone their dragon-slaying skills.



Review:

Dragon movies...hmm. Each one that comes along fails to connect in such a way that the next dragon movie that comes along has an even steeper slope to climb. I think Disney came closest with Dragonslayer – an awesome dragon but a meandering story. Then there was Dragonheart – too cuddly and David Thewlis was a dreadful villain. Reign of Fire was a lot of fun, in a very dumb way, and Eragon was a dreadful reworking of Star Wars. All these movies of course had massive budgets to spend on loads of special effects – but what do you do if you have a fraction of the budget, as is the case with Dragon Hunter?

Dragon Hunter has three things going for it – a decent story with some interesting twists and revelations, a solid cast made of tv character actors and some gorgeous cinematography shot in widescreen. What it doesn’t have, for anything amounting to even a minute of screentime, is a dragon. But as it turns out, this doesn’t matter too much.

The feel of the production is very similar to the BBC tv series of Robin Hood, except here the cinematography, by Cole Webley, is a lot stronger and vibrant. There are a couple of shaky-cam disasters (the first fight scene looks like the cameraman was on rollerskates) but Webley captures some nice scenery which help convey the idea that the group aren’t just walking in circles.The cast gel very well together – a ragtag band of adventurers and warriors, there are little touches to the way they advance through the forest that make them very believable, and should for the most part avoid comparisons to Tolkien’s wandering party. At first I wasn’t taken with Kelly Stable’s character, Raya the scout, until it was revealed that she was an Elf (or half-elf) – then her flighty, breathless performance made more sense. Isaac Singleton Jr manages to stand out of the group, partly because of his imposing presence. He gets some very key scenes and handles them very well – one minute exploding with berserker rage and destroying a troop of orcs, and later showing his softer side, playing with some of the village’s children.

There is a lot of talk about overcoming fear and meeting one’s destiny etc, the sort of thing that always gets spouted in these sort of movies. However, just for once, it’s not all talk. A well crafted finale manages to bring all the talky speeches into action and delivers a revelation that I have to admit I didn’t see coming (I even muttered “cool!” out loud).

Director Steve Shimek wears a number of hats on this movie – he also wrote the screenplay, composed the music and acted as one of the producers. This clearly was a labour of love for him and I’m glad to say I enjoyed the result.

Verdict:

Steve Shimek forsakes big action scenes and expensive fx and replaces them with a character-driven script, a solid cast, top quality cinematography and a believable atmosphere. Anyone currently enjoying Robin Hood on tv should find this entertaining.

6 out of 10 (MikeOutWest)