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At-A-Glance Film Reviews

Dragonworld (1994)

Rating

[1.5]

Reviews and Comments

Dragonworld is a children's fantasy about a boy who moves to Scotland to live with his grandfather and, there, finds a pet dragon, a bad special effect who comes out of nowhere for no particular reason. Then the boy grows up into a young man, and the story begins. From there, the nature and timing of the plot points to follow can be predicted with a stopwatch. Obviously "outsiders" will find the dragon and want to exploit it to make money. Obviously one of them will have a nice daughter, and they'll fall in love until our hero discovers her father's dastardly plan. Obviously there will be reckonings and reconciliations, and obviously it will all be so sickly sweet as to cause nausea. This film is manipulative to unbelievable degrees -- there's no genuine feeling or heart, just mechanical execution and a weepy soundtrack. It was nearly insufferable. It's hard to imagine even kids would fall for this -- I can easily picture children liking this movie, but I can't picture them wanting to watch it repeatedly nor looking back on it fondly when they grow up.

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