George and the Dragon (2004)

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

George (James Purefoy) is returning home after the Crusade. He parts way with his Moorish friend Tarik (Michael Clarke Duncan) in France. Tarik encounters and beats legendary mercenary El Cabillo. Tarik becomes the new El Cabillo. George returns to his village to settle down. His father is an old comrade of King Edgaar (Simon Callow) and joins the quest to find his missing daughter Princess Lunna (Piper Perabo). Lunna is betrothed to the arrogant Garth (Patrick Swayze). Lunna was taken by a dragon who dies after laying an egg. She stays to guard the egg against the local Picts.This is a loosely reworked version of the medieval tale of Saint George and the Dragon. This is an odd unwieldy mix. It's violent but it's not good enough for any adults. The special effects and sets are lower quality. The action is not that good. I doubt kids would like this either. It turns jokey when George meets Lunna. It tries to be an action rom-com but it's tiresome.

They always say never judge a book by its cover. Well, the truth is we all do, even though we know better. Some do it more than others. Me? Well, I guess I'm no different.I saw this movie listed on my "You might like this" list at one of the DVD websites, and, after scoffing at it here and there, wondering what kid of film would have such unimpressive DVD cover art (technically very good, but nothing unique) for a title I'd never heard of? After a while I became curious, dismissed it, then became curious again, until I finally broke down a bought a copy.It was pleasantly enjoyable for what it was. The sets, costumes and even the acting were respectable and entertaining. The truth is this is a kids' flick, so you can't really expect true-to-history swordsmanship and all that went with it. It's meant to tell a tale of knights and chivalry to youngsters who are into that sort of thing. And the film does so successfully.I have no great love for the film, but I appreciate it for what it is, and even then I think it's A quality flick in terms of historic children's' fair. Respectably shot, though somewhat skidding a rough gray area of prosaic and inspired lensing, the film achieves a certain artistry that might be compared to some of the black and white classics in terms of shot composition. But maybe that's getting too high- falutin' for film meant for younger ages.There's some contemporary pop culture references, and the acting is a little over done, but again it's all aimed at younger audiences.The one interesting aspect was to see Patrick Swayze in a historic/fantasy film. One is so used to seeing him in films dipped in Americana that it almost almost seemed out of place for a middle aged Texan to be donning chain mail and strapping on a sword. But, he's an actor. That's his job. He can be anybody. Does he succeed? He sure does. He's in the same thespian league as the rest of the cast.It's an entertaining little film that should put grins on young boys and girls alike on a lazy weekend. If my adult side had a serious criticism, well, I'll just keep those to myself :-)Not a big favorite of mine, but something that shows that a film in this genre can succeed. It's a film that despite being aimed at younger viewers, shows that there's more than enough story material that can be eeked out of a period that's very unfamiliar to most people. In fact this film didn't need all the theatrics and SFX had it been aimed at an older crowd. It shows how this kind of stuff is truly interesting to people... dragons or no.With that in mind, give it a chance.Enjoy with the family :-)

This movie starts out great, and sucks you in. Most acting is good until Patrick Swayze (with his Texas Twang- everyone else sounds British-like even the Muslim) shows up, and proves that he can't act. You can live with that until the first fight scene where all they all fall to pieces. Why does Patrick Swayze fight baddies with an ax when he just stuck his sword into the ground 5 minutes ago.There's further misplacing of swords a few minutes later, and people knowing about other people they shouldn't know about. Other reviewers mentioned "Troubled Production" and it shows.At the end I just didn't even care about the fight scenes, sure, the CGI Dragon was weak, but the storyline was the biggest letdown.

Unlike the title suggest, this movie hardly features any dragons and the movie should perhaps had been titled; "George and the Dragon Egg".Still the movie further more features all of the adventures ingredients you would expect. Swordfights, princesses, traveling, villains. The movie is a fairly good adventure family for the entire family. The movie features some violence but the fun musical score by Gast Waltzing makes sure that the movie remains always light and fun to watch, no matter how serious or scary the movie ever gets.The story is rather weak and simple and the way it is told makes things even worse. Everything is told so formulaic and predictable that nothing ever comes as a surprise- or across as well written. It makes everything that happens in the movie feel disjointed and also quite messy. The character treatment is poor and at least halve of the characters that are introduced seems to be redundant for the movie. Tom Reeve obviously is not a very experienced director yet and I'm not too sure if the real talent for it is present. He often works as a producer or second unit director of B-action movies. The kind of stuff Dolph Lundgren, Rutger Hauer and Christopher Lambert star in. This production is definitely a step-up from those movies but Tom Reeve didn't handled this opportunity very well.Appearantly the movie cost $32,000,000 to make but it doesn't really show in the movie. Sure, the sets and costumes all do look nice but what the movie lacks are some truly impressive and large scale sequences or even some spectacular action sequences. It makes the movie really low budget looking. Looks like they spend most of the budget on the cast.The cast is surprisingly enough filled with some big names but yet the casting gets no thumbs up from me. James Purefoy is a good actor and he mostly showed that in the HBO mini-series "Rome" but he's not good and charismatic enough to play the main heroic character of this movie. The supporting cast is far more impressive with actors like Patrick Swayze, Piper Perabo, Michael Clarke Duncan and Val Kilmer in a small cameo. But unfortunately for most of them also goes that they're miscast in their roles. Piper Perabo plays her character with an overdone English accents that doesn't suit her. It makes you wonder why didn't cast a real English and good actress instead. Also Patrick Swayze feels really out of place in this movie but he at least seemed to be enjoying himself playing in this movie. The highlight of the movie is perhaps the Val Kilmer cameo.Still the movie entertains enough to consider this a watchable enough, at least if your expectations for it aren't too high. The movie does have its good and adventurous moments but it all is not quite good and impressive enough to consider this a real truly great genre movie.5/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/