Dragon Storm (2004)

Sadly Over-hyped

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

I have seen far worse and more time-wasting movies than Dragon Storm. It could have been much better but also much worse. I did think the dragons on the whole were well done, with good movement and design, and their battle was the highlight of the film. The costume and set design are also decent, not stunning as such but at least there is a fantasy-adventure element. John-Rhys Davies is a very enjoyable presence, hammy yet dignified. Dragon Storm definitely could have had some improvements though. The editing is rather choppy, luckily the rest of the production values weren't so bad(compared to other low-budget films I've seen recently) but if they were alongside with the editing the film would have been very cheap to look at. Sadly the camera work isn't much better either, with a lot of dizzying quick shots and edits that if you are not used to can make you a bit seasick. The story does have some exciting moments, mainly with the dragons, but a lot of it is rather dull with lots of things happening for no reason. Although the sets are not too bad the film is very sparsely populated, making it hard to believe that we are talking about two feuding kingdoms and excepting the dragons the rest of the effects are cheaply rendered, stunt actors doing the whole fire gag gets old fast. The dialogue is horrendously stilted, and apart from Davies the acting is wooden. Overall, not a movie I'd recommend but I have seen worse. I am just wondering whether SyFy are ever going to make an at least worthwhile dragon movie(even the best one is heavily flawed), but if they have in all honesty I haven't seen it. 4/10 Bethany Cox

I honestly don't think this movie was meant to be taken very seriously; if you can watch it with a sense of humor, it's actually pretty fun. We've got John Rhys Davies, the evil king of some downtrodden acreage, wearing a crown that looks like it came with a kid's meal at Burger King. He hams up his performance throughout. His "castle" (which looks like an abandoned church that the roof rotted off of decades ago) gets destroyed by dragons, and he and his remaining men set off to the neighboring kingdom for shelter. Along the way they get lost, and meet a huntsman who helps them find their way. It's rather humorous because they show a map of the kingdoms and pan the camera across it to show the journey, but according to the map there's a road they could have followed. I guess if they're too stupid to even know which direction the neighboring kingdom is in, they're too stupid to take the road.So they take refuge with the neighboring king, while all the time plotting to overthrow him. However, the main story is with the huntsman, who teams up with the king's daughter (played by Angel Boris), and some other folks to go hunt the dragons. By far the best part of this movie is the main battle with the dragons, which takes place at night. This is simply beautiful - a large bright moon, marvelous looking dragons skimming above the tree tops, one getting hit with an exploding spear and falling, trailing fire to the ground. The special effects in this sequence simply do not belong in a low budget movie like this, they're WAY too good. How in the world were they able to pull this off with the money they had? I've seen movies with similar budgets where the CGI was absolutely laughable, yet this stuff is not only completely believable, but moody and atmospheric as well. Of course, there's some comedic dialog going on during this wonderful battle, provided by the woman with the large crossbow who keeps yelling "Fire!" when she wants it fired, even though she's the one firing it.Overall, if you can take a large dose of cheese with your really cool dragon battles, you'll probably get a good bit of entertainment out of this. If you're looking for a serious movie, you'll be terribly disappointed. I enjoyed it immensely.

I'm a fan of the famed Dwarf of Lord of the Rings ( I still remember his work in the Wing Commander video game ). My apologies to you, sir, but your character was terrible in this movie.The only guy that did any good was Ling, and that's stretching it. An interesting plot premise, but very VERY bad execution. From Stargate to Dragon Storm, that wasn't a good move.The hunter/hero guy reminds me for some reason of someone on Babylon 5. I'm going to have nightmares over this one, that's for sure.For a hoot, it's worth it if you got the MVP pass to Hollywood Video, but I sure wouldn't pay for this one.

This movie was bad. Just plain bad. Sci Fi has put out some bad stuff before (See Epoch--or rather don't) but this one is terrible. John Rhys-Davies was poorly cast as the villian (I suppose Sci Fi thought they could capitalize on his success from LOTR) and the movie has more action than plot (although that's not saying much).That being said, the good points: Tony Amendola. Known to most as "Bra'tac" from "Stargate: SG1", Tony does (arguably) the best acting job of any of the bunch. The CGI dragons are pretty cool, although the concept their creation is a bit of a stretch. The big selling point to me had to be Angel Boris as the princess. Yum.Aside from that, it's pretty much a sleeper.