Age of Dragons (2011)

It never ceases to amaze me the sheer amount of direct to DVD rubbish that is produced on a weekly basis. Week after week there seems to be yet another low budget creature feature hitting the shelves, and I genuinely can not fathom how they possibly make any money. Despite the warning signs, I still had hope for Age of the Dragons, not least because it’s based on the classic Herman Melville novel Moby Dick, had a decent trailer and stars Danny Glover, a man couldn’t possibly lower himself to the level of the average SyFy film. Although it’s quite as bad as that, I will certainly never be watching this bore fest again.

The storyline is roughly based on Melville’s classic book but in this version Captain Ahab and his crew are searching for the great white dragon that burned his body and took his leg as a child. Ahab hires an aspiring dragon hunter named Ishmael and his close protector friend to join his ragtag group of dragon harpooners ahead of the harvest season. It soon becomes clear that Ahab is only intent on gaining revenge on the white dragon and will lead the crew to their deaths is he has to.

I think it’s only fair to begin by commenting on the plus points of Age of the Dragons which unfortunately there are too few. The production values are way above average for a film of its type with a good sets and costumes and passable CGI effects for the dragons. The cast is solid with Glover being great fun as Ahab playing him as over the top as possible and even the usually annoying Vinnie Jones is bearable. Some of the action scenes are quite fun but the main failure of the film is the sheer lack of them. The only reason anybody would consider watching this film is for some good old fashioned dragon slaying action but despite a scene at the beginning and the films climax there are no dragons in sight. In fact even the final battle is painfully short, clearly the production team just didn’t have the budget to give the dragons more screen time. This means that a huge proportion of the film is dialogue driven and when you have a script this bad it’s a recipe for disaster. To put it bluntly, age of the Dragons is a very boring film with only the B-Movie fan being able to see it to the end.

It was a nice idea to adapt Melville’s book into a fantastical setting but the low budget, lack of action and terrible script renders this one a failure. It’s hard to even recommend this one to bad movie lovers.

4/10