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DVD Adventures of a Teenage Dragonslayer
 Run time: 93 min Rating: 3.0 Genres: Adventure | Comedy | Family Director: Andrew Lauer Writers: Jamie Nash Stars: Lea Thompson, Hunter Allan, Eric Lutes |
| Storyline Branded as a ‘nerd’ and harassed by the school bully, 12-year-old Arthur is rescued by a magical alchemist/troll but is soon able to return the favor. Arthur’s loving mom, who struggles to keep her devious ex-husband from gaining custody of Arthur, dismisses her son’s ‘fantasies’ until she realizes their all-too-real immediate danger and joins forces with Arthur, the troll, the Knights of the Square Table (Arthur’s pals Natalie and Tim), and a dashing but washed up video-game master named Shane. Together, they hope to conquer an unleashed dragon and the wicked vice-principal who threaten civilization. Written by RA/AL |
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| Plot Keywords: dragon, vice principal, troll, nerd, bully | |
| Details: Country: USA Release Date: 16 April 2010 (USA) |
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| Box Office Budget: $3,250,000 (estimated) |
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4 comments
I am sorry, but this movie is the worst fantasy film ever made. The acting was horrible and the story was so poor that no wonder the dialog was pure torture. I was expecting to be at the least, entertained, and at the most, to be involved. I was neither. The characters were not believable, nor was the plot. Teens will find this laughable. Even young children will be bored. It is unfortunate that it seems that most of the money was spent on very poor special effects. A true disappointment.
The one highlight of the film is the music. At least it was entertaining.
I do not recommend this film to anyone. A total waste of time.
This movie………I guess it's good for kids, but if your a parent or adult………..or anyone above the age above 10, I do not recommend this movie at all. First I guess is should talk about the acting. The acting from Lea Thomson & Eric Lutes was good, but everyone else was just corny as holly hell. Lets move on to the storyline of this movie. Although it (thankfully) is not the worst story line of all time, but it just comes off as cliché and predictable. Branded as a 'nerd' and harassed by the school bully, 12-year-old Arthur is rescued by a magical troll who knows that the boy unwittingly holds the secret to defeat an evil dragon. Arthur's loving mom, struggling to keep her devious ex-husband from gaining custody of Arthur, dismisses her son's 'fantasies' until she realizes the all-too-real immediate danger and joins forces with Arthur, the troll, and a dashing but washed up video-game master. Together, they hope to conquer the dragon and the wicked vice-principal who threaten civilization. Special thanks to RA/AL for the synopsis. Now lets talk about what is easily the worst part of the movie, the effects. I know what you might be thinking. "Hey go easy on it it's an Indie film." My answer is that if you have a budget of only $3,250,000 then don't spend it on a fantasy movie. If anything, spend it on a drama or a (special effects-free) comedy movie! I mean the CGI in this movie make Ed Wood props look real! Okay maybe it isn't that bad, but you get what I'm saying! It still might be the worst CGI I have ever seen. So in the end this movie will keep you kids quiet on a winter night, but in the mean time stay away.
I had high expectations for this film, the blurb seemed interesting enough and I'm a big fan of fantasy, and with it being a recent film, I felt that maybe it would have something to brag about.
How disappointed I was.
Being a fan of kids films, I'm used to them having at least a lick of sense, but the plot, although an interesting idea, I think could have been pulled of in a much more interesting and dramatic fashion. The acting was poor, the dialog corny, the effects random and almost to the point of annoying, the graphics left me cringing and I could barely watch it at all.
It left little to no surprises with the overdone clichés and little character development, the most believable character I found was to be Laura (Lea Thompson) and a lot of things simply did not fit.
A 13 year old being fully capable of driving a car? A principle kidnapping people and then trying to feed said people to a dragon and ending up as a janitor? If she actually HAD Darksmoke, why not simply release him again instead of selling him off? Kids film or not, I couldn't sit through a scene without criticizing the poor story execution.
Interesting blurb, but lacked anything worth complimenting.
A group of kids is running through the secret basement of their middle school, trying to escape a fire-breathing dragon.
Wait, let's back up …
Arthur, Tim and Natalie are the Knights of the Square Table. They take their fantasy card game way too seriously, but it turns out someone needs to.
Arthur's parents have split up and it's all poor Laura can do to raise him on her own. Arthur's father is now with Officer Annie, who wants very much to be Arthur's mom.
Vice-Principal Metz lets her son Larry get away with bullying Arthur. If Larry did something wrong, it must have been Arthur's fault. So Arthur gets suspended and Laura gets lectured on her inadequate mothering skills.
It's not Laura's fault that Arthur keeps sneaking out and engaging in risky behavior with his friends, including running through the sewers.
But something is definitely going on. Carpet cleaners in Arthur's neighborhood need Hazmat suits. And Arthur and his friends find a blue troll named Bart who talks like Jar-Jar Binks.
That isn't all. Besides Bart, there is someone else who is trying to bring back the evil dragon leader Darksmoke. To get help, the kids go to a convention where Shane, the creator of the fantasy card series, is signing autographs.
At first Shane dismisses the kids as wackos, but he is finally convinced the cards he created are based on reality. There is a reason for this, as he figures out later.
Can Shane and the kids save the world? And will Shane end up with Laura? I think they like each other.
This movie should not be taken too seriously. It's just a live-action cartoon with plenty of laughs, although Wendie Malick does a very good job as the over-the-top tyrant of a vice-principal. Lea Thompson seems frustrated but has her moments.
Bart is adorable in a creepy way.
These kids are brilliant, claiming to be designing a project for the school science fair. But it's much more than that. While the script may not show much intelligence, the kids sure seem to.
The dragon is genuinely scary. This is a family movie but not really for younger kids. And it does have the obligatory potty humor. Violence is mostly cartoonish, but one scene is pretty upsetting.
I'm Wendie Malick's age so you know the so-called music wasn't intended for my generation.
If you're a kid, you'll probably like it.