DRAGONHEART. Directed by Rob Cohen; written by Charles Edward Pogue; produced by Raffaella de Laurentiis for Universal. Starring Dennis Quaid, Sean Connery (voice,) David Thewliss, and Dina Meyer. Rated PG-13.
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Dragonheart delivers, at least as far as the dragon is concerned. The awesome magic of cutting-edge digital animation, not to mention the just as magical talent of Connery, gives us a beast any dragon fan will be thrilled with.
And the movie has plenty of heart, too, with Quaid as a true- blue knight, Meyer as a damsel determined to cause distress to the bad guys and Julie Christie as a noble queen wise in dragon lore.
It's in the head department that the movie falls short. Specifically, with a muddled plot, puzzling character motivations and a heavy dose of pleasing, but hugely anachronistic politics.
The movie begins in medieval England with a peasant uprising that kills off a tyrannical king and mortally wounds his son. Bowen (Quaid), the boy's teacher, and his mother (Christie) call upon a dragon (who has Connery's voice) to heal the wound. The dragon does, extracting a pledge from the prince to rule by the old code of chivalry and honor.
When he becomes king, however, prince Einon (Thewlis) does nothing of the kind, continuing his father's savage oppression of the populace. Bowen thinks the dragon bewitched the boy, and becomes a dragon-slayer, intent upon ridding the realm of the beasts.
A bit later, however, Bowen and the dragon (who is given the name Draco, after the constellation) become friends and even business partners. And, after some prodding by the rebellious-minded Kara (Meyer), eventually allies on the battlefield.
Bowen's changeable attitudes toward dragonkind is just one of many confusing turns of character that make Dragonheart 's story frustrating to watch. The queen's motivations, too, are hardly ever clear. And even Einon, who's almost TOO repulsive, isn't a clear-cut villain for quite a while since Bowen still seems to think he's good at heart, and we feel bound to believe Bowen. Quite a muddle, indeed!
It's also a shame there's so much gory violence in Dragonheart, not to mention the confusing politics and mysticism. Because very young moviegoers would just love Draco the dragon, especially if they've been read any kind of dragon stories at all. He looks, and sounds, completely realistic, but he's not scary and is easily recognizable as one of the good guys.
If the entertaining middle section of the movie, with Bowen and Draco duping villagers into paying to have a pesky dragon "killed" over and over again, wasn't so short, and if the parable-like story of the dragon and the evil king had been handled more deftly, Dragonheart would be a first-rate adventure/fantasy. As it is, the magic of the special effects and the appealing interaction between Quaid and Connery (who didn't actually interact at all as the movie was being made) make it a worthwhile summer movie all the same. It's just too bad that it's not as good as it could have been.
July 10, 1996