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| George and the Dragon (2004) |
First off, I'm such a fan of stories told in the world of fantasy medieval England. I don't think I'll ever get tired of them. The way knights talk in these stories; I could listen to polite knights talk about honour and duty all day. And the dialogue in this is really strong. There's a lot of back-and-forth, some philosophy, all the stuff you'd expect, but it's all done really well. I will say that the majority of the movie is the stuff you'd expect, which some would see as a problem, since it can be very samey if you've seen a lot of these stories before. Most of the time, the stuff that you've seen before is done well enough that it either feels fresh or is at least good and entertaining, so there's that, though there are moments where the familiar tropes are just there to be the tropes and not add anything new, at which point it does become repetitive and, let's be honest, a little boring. That's not often, though, as for the most part, there's enough in this story that it feels fresh. What really is a nice touch is how they handle the princess character. She's not a damsel-in-distress, she's tough, she actually does things to service the story, she occasionally takes a moral high ground over the hero and it doesn't feel forced or contrived. It's refreshing, especially in a medieval England story, to see a princess character that isn't just a foil for the hero to rescue. It occasionally dips into that territory, at which point it loses me a little, but she's involved enough even then for me to forgive it somewhat.
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| Piper Perabo as Princess Luna |
The entire cast of characters really feel strong. James Purefoy is a great lead for this story, and he's got the right balance of charm, heroism and even stubbornness to really make this role his own. I really like how he's not the knight-in-shining-armour that would otherwise be portrayed in a story like this. He has his fair share of heroic moments, but he's not in the right all the time. He goes on a journey throughout the movie, and comes out the other side a better person, not that he was a bad person to begin with, but he still has growth, and I like that. I mentioned Princess Luna earlier, and Piper Perabo does a great job in this role as well. A character like this could easily have come off as whiny or annoying, but a combination of the strength of the writing and Perabo's delivery stops that from happening. Her accent is also really good, which I only mention because I had no idea she was actually American until I looked her up afterwards. She can do a good English accent. So why were Patrick Swayze and Michael Clarke Duncan speaking in their regular American accents? Don't get me wrong, I liked both of them in their roles here, but why didn't they even attempt English accents? This movie is set right after the Crusades; the American accent was nowhere close to being invented by that point in history. It really kept taking me out the experience until about the halfway mark when I got used to it. Anyway, accents aside, Swayze plays a great prince and Duncan does a fine job as the best friend character. I always love it in movies like these when you can get a sense of the kinship and comradery between two friends right from the opening scene, and this absolutely sold me on that front. I got a sense of George and Tarik's friendship immediately, and Duncan had amazing chemistry with Purefoy. I only wish we got more of Duncan's character in the movie, as opposed to him sailing off right at the beginning.
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| James Purefoy as George and Michael Clarke Duncan as Tarik |
The supporting cast also do a great job here. Bill Oddie is great as the barkeep, Bill Treacher is an excellent comic relief, Paul Freeman and Simon Callow have a commanding presence and dignity they bring to their roles which I adore. Caroline Carver did well acting across from Perabo and Joan Plowright was an excellent Mother Superior. Val Kilmer's even in this. Yes, Val Kilmer appears uncredited as El Cabillo, and he was really great in this role. There's not really a weak link in this cast, everyone does their jobs and does them well. What really stands out about this movie, however, are the fight scenes. Holy crap, these are so well choreographed; better than I was expecting actually. In that first big fight scene, when George and Garth are tossing the axe back-and-forth, I was so ridiculously entertained. And that final ambush on the keep was excellent. There were occasionally too many balls in the air for me to follow, but they did a good job keeping the focus. When it's down to that last fight and it's a 1v1v1, I have to admit, that was something I hadn't seen before and it was great to watch. Whoever choreographed these fight scenes, my hat is off to you. The majority of the movie may have been standard-to-good, but these fight scenes were amazing, and really saved the movie in the final act.
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| Val Kilmer as El Cabillo |
Alright, now let's talk about what didn't work so well, and only now am I realising it's been a while since I've done this. I've gotten a lot better at structuring my reviews so I don't start the final paragraph with some variation of 'So here's what I didn't like', but it does feel necessary here. I mentioned that Patrick Swayze did a great job as the prince, and he did, but I felt the character's motivations were poorly defined. We never really get a sense of what his goals and ambitions are, which does become a problem by the end, since his character arc is the one that is easiest to predict, but without knowing why he's doing the things he's doing, it just feels rushed and bland. At about the halfway mark, you can basically predict every turn the character's going to take, but without really understanding why, which is a problem. Also, as much as I've gushed over the final fight scene, I am curious as to why every single side character had to show up to the battle. It just seems a little unnecessary, and there surely could have been other ways to get a crowd together to witness George's dragon conquest. And, finally, let's get to the elephant- er, dragon in the room: the CGI of the dragon. Look, usually if things look fake in a movie, I'm not too opposed to that if it still looks nice, and the dragon liked fine enough, but not to the point where it didn't stand out like a sore thumb whenever it was on screen. I get that it's low budget, but they surely could have made it look better than this. I mean, it's not terrible, it's just a little bad, especially when it's in the same frame as another human character.
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| Patrick Swayze as Garth |
Overall, however, I really enjoyed my time with George and the Dragon (2004), and, yeah, I'd probably watch it again. It's got just the right amount of new material to keep from being stale, and what's familiar is mostly the good stuff, so do with that information what you will. Me? I liked it. Maybe you'll be in the 47% of people that like it too. 8/10.
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