User Reviews

We're talking low budget here. You know that when you see the same people getting killed, burnt and eaten over and over. The actors are so bad it is funny but, as the facing review declares, you can't quit watching it. There's no point in dissing it because it's too damned delightful to dis. Why bother? The plot(?) involves a bunch of meteoric dragons who are somehow buried in space nuggets hurtling toward Earth and land in 1410 in Carpathia. [Why not?] There, they burn up a rather modern-looking plank house, a peasant and eat his cow. After hatching, they go on to burn up a fort, while a messenger tell the king, [John Rhys-Davies, in full size this time] the news and is, of course, not believed... it goes on. King Fastrod [John Rhys-Davies] turns out is the bad guy and meets up with a mysterious huntsman who leads him to his rival's castle where the local Princess is a tom-boy hunter with a crossbow...and so forth. The dragons are a delight to watch, although you get tired of seeing stunt actors doing the fire gag. The most romantic part is where the huntsman walks in on the princess when she's nudie-patootie getting ready for a bath and gives her a slug of wine.

Hey, it's out on DVD and I liked it. No academy award nominees likely here but, it's good grade B entertainment and John Rhys-Davies's hamming it up is always amusing.

I'm over-voting a little because I think the average is too low. This is a good film for the female roles it develops. Medina and Nessa are both strong characters, one more of a warrior and the other more of a mad scientist type. I'm all for strong female characters. Any romantic interaction with the two ladies takes second place to their heroine-ism in the face of almost-certain death. The opening plot element of a king seeking refuge in another kingdom in the face of a more-or-less natural disaster is more common in end-of-the-world-climate-change flicks. The sound of the flying dragon seems to have been lifted from WWII flying fortress movies. The near-comic dishonesty of the two kings is trumped by the purer evil of the dragons -- a nice post-modern touch. We do now seem to suffer the dishonesty of our political leaders and, perhaps, the dragons we hope for, be they space aliens or whatever, would provide a refreshing change from evil embodied in men we are expected to respect.

Dragon Storm starts in outer space as various meteorites hurtle towards Earth, cut to 'Carpathia 1190 A.D.' as these meteorites land they hatch & large fire-breathing Dragons emerge. A messenger (Vlado Nikolov) informs King Fastrad (John Rhys-Davies) whose Castle is attacked by the Dragons & his people slaughtered, King Fastrad escapes with Theldag (Tony Amendola) his bodyguard who hire a huntsman named Silas (Maxwell Caulfield) to take them to the Castle of King Wednesbury (John Hansson) for protection. Once there Fastrad tells Wednesbury about the Dragon threat that threatens to wipe out his kingdom. King Wednesbury orders his mage Remmegar (Richard Wharton) & Silas to set up a team of Dragonslayers to seek out & destroy the alien Dragons...

Directed by Stephen Furst there is little in Dragon Storm to recommend. The script by Patrick Phillips & Sam Wells is basic, sloppily paced & plotted & commits the unforgivable crime of all but neglecting the Dragons in favour of annoying comedy relief character's & an uninteresting sub-plot about overthrowing King Wednesbury. It's rather predictable & is less than exciting to watch. I would have liked to have seen the Dragons eat some people, one Dragon bites someone's head off at the end but that's it, they just use they're fire breath to wreck havoc which becomes boring very quickly. Also what's with the bizarre notion that Dragons come from outer space?!

Director Furst ruins anything the film might have had going for it, the action scenes are so lacklustre & unexciting it's hard to believe anyone could have made such a mess of it. The character's just stand there looking very uncomfortable, almost as if their not sure as what their meant to be doing. The fights & Dragon battles are tedious in the extreme & these Dragons sure do die easily & don't even seem to put up much of a fight.

Dragon Strom was made-for-TV, it was shot in Sofia, Bulgaria & had a budget of about $1,000,000. The whole thing has a cheap look about it although most of the CGI Dragon effects are actually pretty impressive which is a bit of a surprise, it's just a shame they aren't used to any great effect & the rest of the film is poor. The locations are obviously derelict run down tourist attractions. The acting is average at best.

Dragon Storm isn't very good, it's cheap & doesn't provide much in the way of entertainment. Both Dragonheart (1996) & Reign of Fire (2002), big Budget Hollywood Dragon themed films, are far superior to Dragon Storm in every way. Worth a watch if you can catch it on TV for free & nothing else is on but it's not worth going out of your way or spending good money to secure a copy.

This movie was very odd for me, as I want to both hate it and love it at the same time. The idea that the dragons are aliens makes me want to cry, then think that the idea is, in a way, almost cool, then it makes me want to cry again. However, base concept aside, there are some other things worth mentioning.

1. The acting was, in a word, okay. Sci Fi hyped this that this was starring a fellow from "Lord of the Rings", but LotR this was not. It wasn't so horrible that I'll compare it with an English dub of a Godzilla movie, but there are certainly better examples of fine acting in the fantasy genre.

2. The producer should have spent some more time in post-production. Special effects with the dragons were every bit as good as I could have hoped, given this was a Sci Fi Original Picture. Other things, such as when the Huntsman gets the barb stuck in the back of his neck, were really poorly done. Another month or two in post-prod and it would have looked a lot more, well, professional.

3. Everyone that got set on fire was coincidentally wearing the same cloak that covered them completely except for a little part of the face. It was a dragon movie, a *lot* of people were set ablaze, so this little cost-saver was very noticeable. Forgivable, but noticeable.

All-in-all, I had to give this movie a 6. Certainly not the worst I've seen, but it will hardly down in the annals of history as a classic, and it's definitely better than being at home, bored on a Saturday night.

This is another in a long line of films that I can only recommend as background noise, or entertainment that one can laugh at more than take to seriousness. Dragon Storm really tries more than the other productions Sci-Fi has aired, but too hard. The acting is really forced, and the only performance worth highlighting is John Rhys-Davis, as his portrayal as the treacherous king is given such Shakespearean bravado that it's actually quite good. The special effects, for what they were worth, are okay, though they use the same templates over and over again to exhaustion. To touch the tip of the iceberg, those are the few good things of this film.

What worked was the film as a whole: it had good pacing, and even for a guilty pleasure as it is, it is very easy to watch without getting impatient. It's such a ridiculous film that it succeeds in keeping the audience pulled in to continue.

What didn't work was the film's overall lackluster appeal. The costume designs seem very lazy, and the hunter's wig will provide a lot of laughs to how feminine it makes this grungy guy look. Another flaw would have to be the aforementioned lame acting. The scene with the teenagers wandering through the forest (drunk on mead, and with two girls) was so hilariously awful, that how the director thought that that was a worthy cut to include in the film is beyond me.

The characters are not very original, and are the clichés that must fill the inevitable team of slayers. The recruitment scene (with the hunter and "scientist") was slightly funny, but the slow-motion to make the China-man's karate see more effective was hilarious in its poorness. The final flaw would have to be the ending; none of our characters get real conclusions befitting them -- and beforehand, the deaths of some of the main people were ridiculous and did nothing for the story.

All in all, there were a lot of poor decisions with this film, and the director should never get to make another film -- unless it was meant to be this bad. Not a lot works in this film, and I can only recommend it to people who, like me, get a kick out of watching bad movies.

The things which were right included the wonderful performance by John Rhys-Davies, the inclusion of the jester-dressed martial arts dragon slayer, wonderful vistas and views, wonderful (if not excellent) "alien" dragons, and great dialog.

The problems with it included the horrible delivery of said great dialog; the casting was extremely uneven which made for low charisma between the

characters and the timing of the whole production was a bit off. The armor and costuming were too new and stole from the finished product the opportunity to lend some air of authenticity to the era. The crown worn by Wednesbury was

obviously modern designed, manufactured and the jewels were of obvious

plastic and appeared to have been molded onto the "paper/foil" crown. It was sickening. The structures and sets suffered the same anachronistic sickness as did the costumes and props.

Also, the dragon in the beginning could have received a much better treatment. I know people who do graphics for themselves, for their own home-run website, who do better graphics than the CGI we were presented in the beginning of this flick. When you slow it down and watch it frame by frame, they lack definition and character as they do when just watching it normally.

Half way through the movie, however, these dragons take on a whole new dimension and are given the treatment they deserved. This went a long way into redeeming this film, although the chunky direction and badly timed delivery still manages to drag down what (when given proper attention) is a really well written, creative, and "A" movie worthy screenplay/teleplay. Someone should actually do this for the Big screen, using the same script. This could have been SO much more than this crappy little television movie.

How sad that they couldn't have acquired better talent to portray this work. It's a real shame to have to repeat the dialog to yourself in your mind to get the inflections and wit behind it. And the voices? Were those dubbed or what? They didn't seem to match up to the moving lips. It was like watching a bad 1970's Kung Fu Theater feature. Of course, that came and went as the movie progressed. The score was actually quite good and many times was the only things carrying the movie through the horrible dry deliveries and really bad acting.

Alas! It wasn't enough.

But let's work with what we do have.

We have "The Lament." John, oh JOHN! What are you DOING? Jackson cast actors who needed a big break or a fresh start, and as soon as LotR is over, THIS is what you go back to?! You're wasting yourself and your talents on crap like this!

We have "The Jester-Dressed Far Eastern Dragon Slayer." He chops. He kicks; he gives you true Chinese philosophical wisdoms, and all the while, he never gets a wrinkle in his acetate jester shirt. Not even when wearing his hard leather armor at the dinner table.

We have "Lil Miss You Could Have Knocked" who rubs herself over the heated water barrel and hides her already hidden breasts instead of her nether-regions which AREN'T covered. Way to be coy and discreet, girl. 4 Real. I mean, she's leaning into that barrel, giving it a look that definitely says, "I hate these medieval movies! Where is the SPIN cycle on this thing?!"

We have "Mr. I've Never Heard of a Hairbrush or a BONE to Brush My Hair" Huntsman who looks as if he is wearing a very bad wig, and if he's not, he should watch out for that family of spiders who have obviously nested in his hair.

And we have some good-looking dragon's fire, dragon sequences and after the first few minutes' hesitation, dragons that they weren't afraid to let you see in nice, stunning detail. Kudos to the effects people (those who gave you Python) for the stunning work.

Why all this for some Made For TV (which means "Not Fit For The Big Screen") Crap-Fest? Because of what it COULD have been. This screen play and the dialog found therein, is witty and wonderful. It was just very poorly demonstrated by the severe lack of talent in the direction and in the portrayals.

It rates a 7.8/10 on the "B" scale from...

the Fiend :.

The woodsman was never even shown how to use a bow. The whole film was a total waste of time money and effort. How do they get finance for this kind of movie with such a weak script? some of the animations of the Dragons were good.They should have got rid of the human element. I have seen many SiFi films but sadly this one does not come anywhere near to being of interest to anyone but the brain dead. It was potentially a good subject that could have been made into a classic film but that takes creative effort. Why oh why do highly paid people not see the weaknesses or even the obvious errors (and there were many). Hope there is not to be a sequel.