Take the post-apocaylptic "good-guy tribes" from "Beyond Thunderdome" & "Road Warriors," add "Jurassic Park" to it, a very slight smattering of "Predator", throw it all into the context of a pseudo war film, and add a thick layer of cheese, and you've got quite a bit of this film in a nutshell.

When archeologists dig too deep into the Earth, a dragon is awakened which becomes the vanguard of about a million dragons that spawn like bunnies, and torch the hell out of the planet. The military strike back, apparently nuking their own overrun cities, or some such nonsense, and essentially help out with the overall destruction of natural life on Earth in around 2010. Unlikely newspaper clippings indicate the world-wide phenomenon thru headlines like "Paris is burning", and even a Times magazine cover is seen with the Empire State building surrounded by dragons that are torching it, and the rest of New York City. The picture is apparently an aerial shot, which seems odd since aircraft couldn't fly due to dragons attacking them. Nice to know that things like "Time Magazine" will continue to publish magazines even through worldwide destruction, and manage to get their stuff on shelves, because you never know when something like that might be worth money later to collectors... But.. I digress..

While fleeing the dragons, a few like-minded survivalist English civilians get together and form a society within the ruined walls of an English castle. The countryside is completely burned and torn except for a small grove they use to grow tomatoes (and presumably other farm items) each season. They essentially just huddle there in fear; a society that pretty much stays in the castle, and underground. Food is becoming scarce, and the unspoken word is that their end is near, due to food shortages, and just when circumstances underline their tenuous position, their group is approached by a threatening band of dangerous men.

By this point, is there anything else to lose? Who would ever believe that mankind could actually stand a chance in a war against literally millions of dragons? Who would be foolhardy, or just plain crazy enough to try?

It's hard not to guess how the scenario plays out. It's almost a paint-by-number storyline with very few surprises. The only redeeming qualities here are some of the approaches to the dragon mythology, and also some of the societal evolution created by the "new world." Another interesting concept is the method presented for man to tackle these huge dragons (The "Archangels" are definitely a great concept, if a bit unlikely). Some disappointing factors creep in when certain explanatory lines are spoken, such as "don't worry, the dragon isn't interested in us, it wants the ash to feed on..." which to ME, makes it seem silly that man is running away from great beasts that aren't even predatory, since they apparently don't eat meat. However, later in the film, one dragon eats another "as food becomes scarce for them." Hmm.. Ashes, or a warm meal.. decisions, decisions. Obviously the first line was thrown in merely to provide our adventurers with a means of escape within the confines of the storyline, but after they got away, the digestive systems of dragons took a dramatic turn for the worst as they suddenly became able to digest meat, and took an interest in it.

The main character, "Quinn", was well-played, but not overly so. Almost as if the actor was proficient, but not great. This was the only character with any real depth, but even he struck me as being fairly "single emotioned" most of the time, which is a death knell for a character like that. It's important for a main character to display simultaneous emotions. It's not as though that's something that people notice, but when it's not there, it makes the actor seem substandard. However, I don't think it was really the actor's fault under the circumstances.

The main toughguy/fanatic, "Van Bam(?)", was also well-played (if ill-named), considering his stereotyped role, and bad makeup artists giving him a "clean but grimy", "unkempt, but kempt" appearance. The actor played the role as a semi-psychotic, and was convincing, but he could have been the best actor in the world and not gotten a second glance, because the characterization was weak at best. At one point in the film, it's announced that the dragons are coming, so he grabs a battle axe and jumps OUT of his military tank, because, well.. he's a toughguy, complete with a well-chewed cigar and sleeveless jacket, not to mention his Celtic-designed tatoos all over his muscular torso. (My friend Eric and I laughed ourselves silly over that, and the way the guy ran like a clown was just ridiculous.) He looked semi-impressive, as long as he didn't move around too much, but this guy was definitely no body actor. It seems that they should have changed the film's frame rate to smooth out his movements at times, similar to how "Gladiator" used the odd frame speed to turn a soccer player into a graceful swordsmen. Alas, it seems that the director let this film get away from him, or was too concerned with properly framing scenes to notice issues like that. Key makeup was sufficient for long distance shots of him, but whenever a close-up was required, the tatoos were pristine clean with a quarter-inch boundary of clean skin, surrounded by grime designed to amplify his musculature.. very amateurish.

The main love interest (if that's what she was) was fairly non-dimensional. She was a military type with a softspot towards Quinn. That's how she seemed to act throughout the film, with little or no character development. Several close-ups of her face revealed another bad weakness in the key make-up department, which distracted me a bit. It was almost as if key-makeup was designed for distance viewing only, and no one bothered to tell them when a close up was going to be shot that day. She seemed to be a decent actress, but again, she was hampered by poor characterization.

The CGI used on this film was pretty bad, with the exception of the dragons themselves. I grew tired of the blasts of CGI flames that shot into the camera all the time because they SUCKED, and how hard would it have been to use real pyrotechnics for stuff like that? In one scene there was a disturbing use of flame CGI to illustrate burning structures, but the flames were scaled wrong. The flames were obviously small but enlarged and composited onto a semi-real environment. The end result was similar to seeing the minature Tokyo of old Godzilla movies igniting into flame, but the model buildings were replaced with a realistic environment, very odd.

(Tech-note: I could spend days writing about how the flame paths were unnaturally adjusted to allow certain folks to escape it's blast, ruining any concepts of flame consistency, but I don't think any of you are really going to care too much about that.)

And... just because it's GOTTA be said: The dragons themselves were very impressive. I can honestly say that they're the best I've ever seen in a film. That includes the "holy grail" of dragons, the one from the movie "Dragonslayer". I can also honestly say that some of the dragons appeared more impressive than any drawn ones I've seen too. However, for all that, they DID have what I consider to be a movement flaw. Essentially, when they bank in a turn, they develop a strange "lift" that pushes them forward, similar to how a fighter jet can use thrust to sharpen a turn. Without actually moving, other than arching their necks, and twisting into a turn, they shouldn't have been able to do that without additional propulsion of some kind. It may seem minor to hear me describe it, but for me, it was jarringly unrealistic, and after the film, Eric complained about it without my prompting.

There was also a scene where the biggest, baddest dragon pauses to roast some folks when they're all lined up for him. It showed a bad overlap where it appears that his wings should actually be IN the ground during the manuever. Another scene had several dragons flying in what can only be called "CGI blur mode" where it appeared that several of them passed through buildings, and each other, but I have to note that when I own the DVD I'll have to take another look at that to be sure. It happened so fast, it was hard to track. I believe that's a compositing issue where screen elements weren't merged together correctly on the film.

However, that being said, these were still incredibly artistic masterpiece CGI dragons that, in most scenes. worked very well. For those who feel that CGI dragons can't be art, I submit to you some quotes found on the homepage for the film, so that you might make a more educated decision on the matter:

"The biggest thing and the thing I had no idea about when we started this process was that you’re basically building an animal from the skeleton on up," Bowman says. "I thought it was much simpler draw the dragon, the guy puts it into the computer, and you’re done. No. You have to build every bone, every muscle, every gland, every toenail it took me nine months to make one dragon."