For The Children

In my ongoing effort to watch the VHS tapes I've bought over the last year or so, I watched the childrens' film "Dragonworld". It is from the same people who made "Prehysteria", a film which I managed to watch without writing a little review. In any event, Dragonworld held my interest tolerably well, although I found enough fault in in by the end. I will try very hard to be fair in my assessment of it.

A little boy from America is forced to live at his grandfather's castle in Scotland after the accidental death of his parents. The grandfather faces a steep tax bill which he is unable to pay.  A sleazy TV show guy stumbles upon the castle and the dragon, connecting the boy with an evil businessman. The boy, the TV show guy, the TV show guy's daughter and their chopper pilot realize the error of their ways and strive to defeat the evil businessman.

The little boy is not such a good actor. He's replaced by a better one as the boy grows older, but the character is helped none by his strange ignorance of modern devices. He reveals that he does not know what a helicopter is, and he also is mystified by listening to music through headphones. Most of the other actors are fine, though none of the characters featured very prominently are written any better. The older characters are mostly strong, and the younger ones are mostly not.

The effects could be worse, but are never especially convincing. I guess you can work with it if you really use your imagination. As hard as the actors try to grant life to the dragon through their reactions, it's just not expressive enough to ever seem alive. The story is mostly fine, although it's at its best when it is small and gets worse when the stakes grow larger. All in all, I wouldn't stop someone from watching the movie, but I wouldn't encourage them either.