Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Dragon Wars: D-War (2007)



I was prepared to really let Dragon Wars have it in this review, but two things made me ease up a little. One is that I watched the Special Features presentation of director Hyung-rae Shim talking about the movie. The second -- and more important -- is the reaction of my six-year-old son.

First, my reaction. The "high-quality Power Rangers" analysis was right on. The plot isn't any great shakes, but it makes sense and the CGI is passable. The characters are all lame though, partly because of how they're acted (except for Craig Robinson from The Office who's pretty much still playing Darryl, but I love Darryl). Mostly though, they're lame because of how they're written.

The plot is based on a Korean legend about giant, celestial snakes who want to turn into giant, celestial dragons. There are good snakes and bad snakes and the only way any of them can become a dragon is through a magic energy that only appears on Earth every 500 years. Complicating the situation is how the energy always appears in a Chosen Girl on her twentieth birthday. Girls need protecting (didn't you know that?), so a Chosen Dude is also reincarnated with her, and just so they both have some help -- and to round out the clichés -- an Old Wizard is reincarnated too.

Jason Behr is the protector in this case, but he does very little protecting. Mostly he just holds the girl's (Amanda Brooks) hand as they run all over LA trying to get away from the evil giant snake. He actually picks up a sword and fights once during the whole movie, but it's a short fight and he gets his ass kicked. Robert Forster is only slightly more helpful. He provides the necessary exposition at the beginning of the movie and then disappears for most of the rest of it, occasionally reappearing in disguise in order to perform such important tasks as giving Behr and Brooks a lift. Why he needs to be in disguise to drive them around, we never learn.

We also don't learn things like why a giant snake is buried underneath LA at the beginning of the movie. How did it get there? What's it doing? Who knows.

Other sloppy writing: the FBI is chasing heroes and snakes around, trying to figure out what's going on, but once they catch up to the heroes, the agents suddenly know everything thanks to some previously unmentioned "paranormal divison." It's nice to know that Mulder and Scully are on the case, but it would've been nicer to have that set up earlier. Of course, the agents don't really contribute to the plot in any meangingful way so it's a moot point, but still.

It's also frustrating that we get no context for the evil snake's minions. He's got dinosaurs with cannons strapped to their backs. They're very cool to look at, but what the hell are they? Where'd they come from? Who made those cannons? And those flying, fire-breathing reptiles that look exactly like dragons but can't be because they're working for the giant snake who wants to be a dragon? Don't know what those are either. They all look very cool fighting tanks and helicopters, but there's no substance to the fight.

They should've at least made Behr a helicopter pilot instead of a reporter, then they could have him and Brooks fighting in the big battle and it would've meant something. But no.

For my six-year-old though, who now wants a Dragon Wars party for his seventh birthday (next January), that's enough. He loved the movie.

And it's also enough for Hyung-rae Shim who personifies enthusiasm and is just... so... thrilled to see his vision of a legend from his homeland translated onto the screen as an American blockbuster-style movie with a Korean folksong over the end credits. You have to admire the guy's passion if not his writing.

So the lesson learned is that if you're not looking for anything heavier than a typical Saturday-morning cartoon, Dragon Wars might be for you. It's cool, but only superficially so. Everyone else, go see Cloverfield again.

Three out of five evil cobras. It would've just been two, but my son's reaction gets it an extra one.

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