Movie and Television Reviews

(for most occasions)

(for alchohol-drenched after-study bull sessions at the frat house).

Varying in quality between a three-star youtube video and the first Dungeons and Dragon movie, the most baffling thing about Dragon War (D-Wars) is how it managed a cinematic release instead of going directly to Mystery Science Theater 3000 (forget about strait-to-DVD).

Follow up:

Dungeons & Dragons (New Line Platinum Series)

After noticing its high grade on movies.com (was it crack-day at movies.com?), I entered the theater with high expectations, but D-Wars proves itself amateurish and uncreative from the first note of its forgettable soundtrack.

In the opening credits, a narrator briefly explains D-Wars' back story over a rolling conquest-map in the manner of Lord of the Rings, however, unlike Lord of the Rings, the introduction fails to either illuminate the situation or create interest in what's to follow. Any hope one may have that the credits are an aberration is crushed in the first scene wherein the hero, TV reporter Ethan, who looks and acts like the “deep” barista at an Orange County Starbucks, is the only press investigating a construction site containing something the government doesn't want anyone to see yet allows to be taped by Ethan and his vintage 1993 VHS-C camcorder. Looking upon the scaly, fossil-like egg being dusted by the government employee triggers a flashback to a childhood encounter with an antiques dealer named Jack.

In it, we see a young Ethan opening a secret box (We don't see inside, but it must be an egg. I guess egg props are expensive). That's what Jack's been waiting for his whole life; Jack then pretends to be sick in order to get Ethan's father out of the store. Being a responsible dad, Ethan’s father leaves his 10 year old son behind with the strange old man about to have a heart attack. Fortunately for the dad, Jack just wants to tell Ethan that he’s the “chosen one” and give Ethan a magical necklace.

The Lord of the Rings - The Motion Picture Trilogy (Platinum Series Special Extended Edition)

D-Wars then treats us to a fifteen minute semi-montage on the history of the dragon mythos in question that left me more confused than I would have been had you asked me about Korean dragon legends during my pre-movie dinner at iHop. It has to do with heaven, dragons, and a special girl or “Yeouijoo” who can control the bad dragon, Buraki, because of a tattoo on her shoulder unless the Buraki captures her first and does something to her in a stone-altar ceremony.

Unfortunately for us, the girl and her protector elude the evil dragon by jumping off a cliff, an option you may find more compelling than watching the rest of the movie. I say “unfortunately” because by not fulfilling Buraki’s desire for immortality or defeating him, the couple’s suicide gives Buraki a chance to reappear 500 years later (2007) and try again, or, in other words, Buraki lands in Los Angeles on the weekend I chose to go to the movies. The 34th huge CG set-piece battle in the six years since Lord of the Rings during this part of the movie is about as interesting as a “State of the Agriculture Department” Power Point presentation.

The situation is the same in 2007 except that the girl is a blond named Sarah and her protector is Ethan. Instead of satisfyingly seeing them hurl to their death, we have to watch Ethan track down Sara and "protect her." Why whoever's in charge of picking future protectors of princesses chooses near-Emo Ethan is itself a great mystery, for he can't fight and shows little evidence of thinking. I suppose it's because he can drive. Ethan eludes one of the Buraki’s super-warriors by running him over-twice. Ethan eventually decides to take Sarah to Mexico because, of course, dragons don't have passports and the Mexican custom officials are very thorough.

Anyways, Sarah and Ethan get captured and Buraki takes them to a hellish volcanic, desert-like area which I’m guessing is somewhere close to Barstow. The movie ends there and you're released to carry on with your life.

D-Wars is about as coherent and focused as a debate between Ron Paul and Mike Gravel. The plot attempts to be mundanely conventional, but instead is disjointed and jerky, moving illogically from one setting to another. What passes for a subplot, an F.B.I. Agent gone bad, is pathetically tacked-on without any development or tension.

The love story between Ethan and Sarah makes no sense whatsoever: They fall in love after one stroll on the beach and from that moment, Ethan pledges his life to her. The comic relief from Ethan's co-worker is neither comic nor relieving.

The trickle of awfulness overwhelms. We see the egg at the beginning of the movie, but where''s the scene where Buraki hatches? Why does Buraki have trouble with a civilian helicopter, but can swat Army gun ships as if he were O.J. Simpson at a memorabilia convention? Why do we have an opening narration and a flashback? Couldn't the opener have been the flashback? Where's the presidential response scene?

The director devotes long scenes to inconsequential “flavor enhancers” like the ten minutes given to a zoo keeper suspected of being crazy for seeing Buraki and the teenage horror movie-like sequence where a young couple acts like nothing’s wrong (they're getting ready for sex) before being killed. Worst is a homeless man who yells “you bum” at Ethan’s car after it passes over a puddle and wets him. Why would the editor choose to keep that? Do you think that’s humorous?

What is funny is the reaction of the authorities to Buraki. Buraki is 500 feet of quick-moving, elephant mutilating snake, yet roams Los Angeles without being noticed save for the aforementioned zoo-keeper. In a disaster response that makes Nero look like Rudy Giuliani, the government dispatches a platoon of lightly armed men to destroy the proto-dragon- no air support, no reserve force, no nothing. And, I hope real special forces aren’t trained to follow evil, magical snakes into its lair to get slaughtered.

Buraki isn’t much smarter. He lets his potential victims escape again and again by always hesitating before one of his strikes. In the only morsel of reason offered to a logic-hungry audience, after two days of E-Ticket access to America's second largest city, the Army sends helicopters to kill Buraki. They arrive right as one of Buraki's ill-advised pre-strike pauses is about to end, distracting Buraki and allowing Ethan and Sarah to begin their ill-fated road trip to Mexico.

Everything in the movie is strictly B-grade. The actors are poor and their dialog worse. The police utter “hey, step back” about three times in a row as if they couldn’t think of one variation. The F.B.I lounge around after a meeting before yelling “let’s go,” and then everybody races out of the office-even those who couldn’t possibly hear the command. The citizen-panic scenes are worse than those in the original Godzilla.

And then there’s Ethan’s mentor, Jack. He appears in front of a bar to save Sarah from some thugs and again at a hospital to assist in one of their escapes. So, Jack knows where Sarah is and he can certainly locate big-time news anchor Ethan; why doesn’t he just tell Ethan where Sarah is? Is watching Ethan uncleverly go through every Sarah in Los Angeles so compelling that they couldn’t allow some plausibility? And what happens to Jack? Why wasn’t he at the ending?

On the bright side, you have to admire the filmmakers' earnestness. They could have given up and gone for a Shaun of the Dead silliness, but they they try to make a serious movie.

Shaun of the Dead

What money did go into the movie, went to make a decent CG Buraki and his good dragon (Imoogi) nemesis. If you’re into “so bad it’s good” movies, then you may want to see it. If you’re expecting, like I was, a good dragon movie like Reign of Fire, please skip it.

Reign of Fire

Politics/Message:

If you think Americans make bad movies, check this out. As for the messsage, it's mostly help the good, I guess.

Directed by
Hyung-rae Shim

Writing credits
(in alphabetical order)
Hyung-rae Shim

Cast (in credits order)

Jason Behr ... Ethan

Amanda Brooks ... Sarah

Robert Forster ... Jack

Aimee Garcia ... Brandy
Craig Robinson ... Bruce

Chris Mulkey ... Agent Frank Pinsky

John Ales ... Agent Judah Campbell
Elizabeth Peña ... Agent Linda Perez
Billy Gardell ... Zoo Guard
Holmes Osborne ... Hypnotherapist

NiCole Robinson ... Psychiatrist
Geoffrey Pierson ... Secretary of Defense

Cody Arens ... Young Ethan

Kevin Breznahan ... Reporter
Jody L. Carlson ... Sarah's Mother
Dominic Oliver ... Head Doctor

Craig Anton ... Dr. Austin
Patricia Lee ... Sarah's Nurse
Jody Carlson ... Sarah's Mother

Eloy Casados ... Homeless Native American

Alexa Motley ... Mystery Driver

Matthias Hues ... Bounty Hunter #1

Gregory Hinton ... Bounty Hunter #2

Derek Mears ... Bounty Hunter #3

Gerard Griesbaum ... Bounty Hunter #4
Retta ... Receptionist Nurse

Jane Silvia ... Nurse #1
rest of cast listed alphabetically:

Enci ... Screaming Office Worker
Roberta Farkas ... Narrator
Rob Roy Fitzgerald ... Detective
Ethan Grant ... FBI agent

Joe Don Harris ... LA SWAT

James Intveld ... Homeless man

Jamie Kaler ... Helicopter Pilot
Pete Kasper

Kerry Liu ... Christine Shim

Scott Lunsford ... Police Officer
Nathan Mills ... Pizza Delivery Guy

Anthony Molinari ... Dude #1

Art Oughton ... Hospital Guard
Richard Steen ... Ethan's dad
Michael Shamus Wiles ... Evil General

Cheyenne Alexis Dean ... Young Sarah (uncredited)

Produced by
James B. Kang .... producer
Hyung-rae Shim .... executive producer