The Age of Dragons

The Age of Dragons (2011)
Directed by: Ryan Little
Written by: Anne K. Black, Gil Aglaure, Herman Melville, McKay Daines
Starring: Corey Sevier, Danny Glover, Vinnie Jones

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2sEicCQs_c[/youtube]

The Age of Dragons (2011)

Certificate: 12

Running Time: 91 minutes

Director: Ryan Little

Writers: Anne K. Black, McKay Daines

Starring: Vinnie Jones, Danny Glover, Corey Sevier

Reviewed by: Matt Wavish, official HCF critic

Imagine, if you will, a bunch of kids a primary school being asked to take part in a school play based on Captain Ahab and his hunt for the Great White Whale, now change that story from a whale to a Dragon. Now, add into this fantasy of yours some repected actors who have actually starred in some rather fine films, give them, and their supporting cast some plastic swords and medievil outfits. Give them a script, but tell them that they needn’t bother learning it, or even delivering it with any real passion or meaning. Ask them to run about a bit, not for action’s sake, but just to keep fit, you know, work up a sweat. Tell them they will be involved with swords fights, but to just improvise. Remind them that when Danny Glover speaks, just nod your head and pretend like you understand. Tell them that there will be dragons, but they will be added into the scenes by computer afterwards, so don’t even bother to pretend like there is a dragon in front of you. Ask the people in charge of the music to come back every now and then, but to not let creating music for a film spoil their enjoyment of others things like social chit chat and drinking cups of tea, anything really apart from playing the music when, and where it’s needed. And finally, remind everyone on set that Vinnie Jones IS the best actor here, and rumours are he may well win an Oscar next year for this!

Now, as you’ve probably guessed, some of that was being sarcastic, while other bits I was being deadly serious. The Age of Dragons is quite possibly the worst film I have seen since some cheap horror company made a hellishly bad horror called Zombeak! To say that Vinnie Jones looks more like Robert De Niro is saying something, but that is how awful the acting is here. Don’t get me wrong, I like Vinnie Jones and I would hate to get on his bad side, but when you say he is the best actor in the film, you know you’ve got problems. Danny Glover, the veteran, is dreadful. His acting abilities are fading with his hair, and his lisp is getting worse, worse to the point you would actually need the subtitles to understand his mumbo jumbo, if you can be bothered that is.

I’ve pretty much summed up the film in the opening paragraph, but just so I do my duty as an ‘official critic’, I will share the plot with you. The year is God knows when, but dragons are all the rage, and Captain Ahab has had a bitter experience at the hands of one particular dragon and is hell bent on revenge. I believe the dragon killed his mother? Can’t rememer. Anyway, turning the Moby Dick story on its head (was this actually supposed to be clever by the way???), instead of hunting the Great White Whale, Ahab is now after the Great CGI Dragon and he takes along a group of plonkers to help. Thats it. I could go on and on at how bad this film is, but I won’t, I have much more important reviews to write than to continue waffling on about this nonsense. Simply, if you see this on the rental or retail shelf, leave it there!

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