Dragonslayer

Dragonslayer
1981
Directed by Matthew Robbins

I like fantasy movies from back in the day. I think Conan the Barbarian and Legend kick ass. Yeah, the writing is sorta cheesy, the acting is not so great, the stories are kinda gay and even fairly formulaic. Now I watch Dragonslayer, which follows a pretty old formula as well. I just wrote a scathing review of Blown Away and bitched about how it followed standard thriller formula. So why am I about to tell you about how Dragonslayer was a pretty decent film when it had the same problem as Blown Away? Well, for one thing, thrillers are pretty much based around tension and the surprise factor. How can you be surprised or tense when you feel like you've watched the movie a hundred times before? But fantasy as a genre is based mostly on archetypes. In real life, good vs. evil quickly becomes complicated the more you look into it. We live in a world of grey, where nothing is certain. How can we have heroes in such a world? There is nothing absolute to fight for. Everybody has valid motivations. Things are not easily categorized. One of the main functions of the fantasy genre is to create or resurrect a mythical past in which archetypes and principles still exist and stand for something. A dragon, for instance, kills because it is its nature; there is no more motivation required. Therefore a hero must be opposed to this evil, for the sake of life itself. Within this milieu, a great number of other archetypes exist which are in reality the very essential form of all things within our own world, without the complicating factors of moral ambiguity. In a world where moral parameters are clearly defined, taking a stand means a lot more than it does in our skewed and unclear contemporary existence. My point being that fantasy films and literature seem to repeat themselves endlessly, and yet it is this very orthodoxy that gives them that elusive quality of universality.

Dragonslayer is pretty much your typical sword and sorcery flick, except that it isn't quite. There's the standard story of an evil dragon who terrorizes the countryside, and a hero who is summoned to vanquish it. There is a brave young apprentice who uses magical artifacts to help to achieve this. There is a corrupt king and there are virgins to sacrifice to the dragon. These are all things I've seen before. But there is a sort of weirdness to Dragonslayer that is a bit hard to explain. Things don't always work out quite the way you would expect. The old wizard recruited at first to kill the dragon predictably dies before his task is complete; as usual, his job falls to his inexperienced apprentice, a common enough plot. But the old wizard may still have a trick up his sleeve from beyond the grave. A spoiled princess turns out to be braver than expected. The existence of evil, as in Legend, is at least partially attributable to the magical forces of good. The ending, then, carries a bit of a sour note, and a bitter one, although not unsatisfying.

The odd note carries over into the acting performances as well. Everybody seems a little weird. The venerable Ralph Richardson is good as the aging wizard Ulrich. He draws a little more humanity out of the character than is typical for this sort of role, musing on his past life and the nature of good and evil. Peter MacNichol is sort of goofy as Ulrich's apprentice Galen, who takes up the task of dragonslaying with surprising carelessness, and yet somehow seems to fit the story anyway; instead of a brave and bold hero, more of a foolhardy and delusional one. Caitlin Clarke is not particularly good but not bad either as Valerian, a virgin disguised as a man to avoid sacrifice to the dragon. Oh yeah, I wanted to talk about that. Why do mythical beasts love virgin sacrifices? I mean, why do they care? Furthermore, wouldn't an extremely powerful beast who loves nothing better than to burn people to a crisp just rampage about all the time, instead of making a deal with the locals for a yearly sacrifice? Who managed that treaty anyway? Does somebody speak dragon?

Of course, one of the main attractions in a movie like Dragonslayer is the dragon itself, which is awesome. At first it looks a little cheesy when it's flying around the countryside, but the scene in the dragon's lair looks great; I don't know how they did the effects, but it really looks like they built a giant dragon. It's probably one of the best scenes I've ever seen in a fantasy film; it just looks legit. Speaking of legit, the whole film summons up a nice dark ages vibe. From the costumes to the set design, Dragonslayer looks like the real deal. Even the cinematography is pretty good, with nice, austere highlands and moors creating a rugged and suitably foreboding medieval Ireland.

Things are a little uneven, sure. You don't really get connected to the characters very much; but then again, Dragonslayer manages to not overdramatize everything as well. Most characters seem to accept fate without much fuss. It might just be a lack of acting acumen, but the absence of extreme emotionality creates an interesting tone for the film. It's sort of refreshing after such weepy (no offense Peter Jackson) epics as The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

It's hard to say what rating to give Dragonslayer. It doesn't really blow you away, and it's a bit odd at times, but there's definitely something about it. The thing is, I can't really tell if its restrained and definitively un-showy manner is the result of a low budget or deliberate. In either case, I think the effects benefit from it, giving the movie a more realistic quality. Perhaps unintentionally original, overall a solid effort. Directors of recent fantasy fare such as Beowulf and The Lord of the Rings might take a few lessons from it. In fact, I think it reminded me most of the rather crude Beowulf and Grendel, the decidedly low-key (and sorely underrated) predecessor to the CG-happy 3-D Beowulf mentioned above. Expecting flashy production and exciting battles, people seem to fail to understand what, exactly, myth and fantasy are about.

7.3