Dragon Heart: Central Plaza

If dinosaurs were brought out of cold storage by Steven Spielberg, then why not dragons? That's what director Rob Cohen must have thought when he decided to make Dragon Heart. The fairytale may raise a modicum of laughs among kids (the slapstick part) but it is most unlikely to absorb adults beyond the halfway mark.

When Prince Einon (David Thewlis) ascends the throne, his protector and knight of lofty ideals Bowen (Dennis Quaid) makes him swear that he'll rule unlike his father's "blood, lust and tyranny" reign. But the son outdoes the father in evil. After Einon is grievously injured, his mother Queen Aislinn (Julie Christie) ventures to the last dragon Draco (Sean Connery) and pleads for supernatural intervention. Hence the liaison between the dragon and Bowen who becomes a dragon-slayer, a partnership which benefits them while pulling the wool over others eyes.

If you think the wicked young king's escapades and the reaction it elicits from the peasantry are even remotely absorbing, think again. Cohen may dazzle with picturesque locales but the action is dull. Quaid and Connery are wasted and the jet black and snow white characters don't help in any way. For all of Cohen's efforts to raise an old legend (after all England's patron saint is King George who slew the dragon) it falls flat on its face. As for Thewlis, the hamming, cruel king, he reminds one of Peter O'Toole's ambitious but idiotic son in Becket.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.