MOVIE REVIEWS

Review by Filipe Manuel Neto

**A "Dragonheart" lady in support of gender equality, in a film that is again as bad as the worst in the franchise.** After more than a handful of films, the “Dragonheart” franchise, which was carried in the arms of producer Rafaella de Laurentiis, has yet another launch: I hope it will be the last. In fact, despite the quality and magic of the first film, none of the releases that followed could even match the original. For this reason, the majority did not even go through the movie theater, going directly to DVD and other similar media. This movie doesn't even make an effort. If the previous movie was decent enough to be worth a visit, this movie has so many weaknesses in the script that I can't really recommend it: the events occur at the same time as the first movie, but it feels like they are happening in another place, and report the quest for revenge of a young man whose family was killed in a car accident... wait! Wagon accident! As if the traffic was so much, at that time, and the trips so ordinary, that there could be the chance of something like that actually happening! It's preposterous, to say the least. Obviously, the young man casually learns that there is a dragon, and goes to him in hopes of convincing him to solve his problems. Simple! The dragon, in this case a female, obviously doesn't accept it, causing the kid to throw a tantrum. Meanwhile, there's a war going on, we have the friendly people of the villages being starved to death thanks to bandits who burn crops, and a tyrannical king who seems, somehow, to be ominously in the middle of it all. Machiavelli would certainly be proud of such a figure… I honestly have seen better villains. Despite Helena Bonham-Carter's decent job voicing the Dragon Lady, the rest of the cast doesn't seem to deserve monumental praise. Arturo Muselli was competent in the role of the king, and suitably somber, but Joseph Milson is, by no means, a capable and talented protagonist who can handle the role he has in hand. He just seems like an insecure, angry boy, looking for an easy solution to his problems. Again, the film bets a good part of its chips on decent CGI, and on the creation of a fake dragon capable of convincing us. That was achieved, but as far as effects, we're done. The cinematography is pleasant, but at times it seems too artificial, as if the film were made entirely on a computer. What really looks bad is the dose of bad costumes and the excessively fanciful way in which the Middle Ages, in a very concrete and remote period, were portrayed. But that's a problem endemic to the entire franchise.