Reign of Fire

Seriously don't waste your time. The only good thing about this movie is a few of the bad guys have good makeup and the Princess is pretty. But still, big NOPE.

This movie have a lot of elements that should be able to make it a good experience; A basically ok story A cute princess in Rebecca Dyson-Smith A good king in Mike Mitchell A evil prince in Jon-Paul Gates A couple of knights in Ross O'Hennessy and Ben Loyd-Holmes A couple of female warriors in Zara Phythian and Jemma Moore A lot of weird evil fantasy creatures A bunch of undead zombie creatures A couple of dragons to top it off.

BUT still its something that is really missing here, not sure if its to blame a weak director or the lack of good script. After just a short time watching you start to feel bored and wonder when the amazing special effects will show up, (the poster promises that there are more dragons than in the combined Hobbit films) In the poster it also claims that the same special effect crew as the one in the Harry Potter movies are hired, but the film makers must have forgot to promise them money for their job, because there are "a bit difference" in the effects and how they looks.... Well there are a couple of dragons, and they are "not too bad" for a low budget movie. But they are not "OMG SO AMAZING" by far. The creatures have average costumes/makeup, blue coveralls and ski mask for many of them.....

The acting is a chapter on its own, its not good, its not average, its really close to bad. This could be to blame on a weak director, but I'm not really sure thats the only reason. For my untrained eye it seems that the actors don't have any chemistry with each others, and are "acting on autopilot". Of the actors I think the best are Jon-Paul Gates, playing the "evil prince" he clearly is good at being evil, but its only limited how much screen time he gets (and he is maybe only looking good because the others are sooooo bad)

The movie ends in a weird way, and my Christmas indulged brain is worried that the ending insinuate a follow up in the future some time. This can only be better than tis movie (crossing fingers), but I still hope it takes a couple of years, at least :)

If you have other interesting things to do, like watch paint dry, please consider that before watching this movie

This movie is living proof of what you can achieve with £1000, a dozen Halloween costumes off of ebay and a camera. I genuinely believe they snook into a couple of heritage sites before any visitors came in and quickly shot some scenes. Really don't bother.

Ive been in several big budget films and a bunch of low budget and student films and of course watched thousands. Ive never seen worse.

As suggested elsewhere, they did in fact sneak into heritage reconstruction sites to film or got permission. I've been in that very village I believe.

They dont even bother to try to hide the 21st century signs though they do film from the back side of them but you can clearly see their shape and the modern bolts.

Even worse as they enter the first village look to the left of the screen as they pass the very small shed thats the size of a one man toll booth.

Plainly visible on the door is a modern calendar with a picture of a slice of pie on the top.

Then the circular seating area on their left as they enter is clearly made of planks sitting on modern concrete blocks.

Perhaps worse still. Look at any seem with farm animals and take not of the modern wire fencing.

It just gets worse and worse.

The acting is so incredibly lame, especially the pathetic troll called Prince Favian.

They should be ashamed they wasted their resources on this when 100 bucks of stage muslin could have fixed all the stuff I mentioned other than the acting.

I eventually ended up sitting down to watch the 2018 fantasy movie titled "Dragon Kingdom", as I like fantasy sword and sorcery stuff. Granted, I had not heard about this 2018 movie from writers Aston Benoit and Ben Loyd-Holmes before sitting down in 2020 to watch it.

Notably, I must admit that I didn't really have much of any expectations for the movie, as this had pretty much come and gone well under the radar. And a great number of fantasy movies tend to be badly produced and having ludicrous props and costumes. But still, it might just happened that "Dragon Kingdom" was an entertaining movie, one that wasn't just going to be another failed fantasy movie.

So I sat down and watched "Dragon Kingdom". And I managed to get through the entire movie, just dozed off once or twice along the way.

While the storyline in the movie was actually decent enough, albeit pretty generic and stereotypical for a fantasy movie, then the movie suffered terribly from a lack of proper effects and costumes.

I mean, some of the costumes, especially those for the heroes and their allies was good. Some of the foes were adequate, although it was just painstakingly obvious that it was people wearing latex masks, as the masks lacked facial expressions and movement. And then there were the creatures in black, ghouls perhaps? I have no idea what the props department were thinking here; I mean, putting people in black spandex suits that weren't even form-fitted and then adding latex masks and odd plating on the back. It was just so obvious that it was just spandex suits, given the way the garments folded up when they moved. It was just abysmal to watch, and I wonder how this ever made it past the concept table.

Director Simon Wells didn't manage to present an overly impressive fantasy movie here with "Dragon Kingdom". But while overall a terrible movie, there were bits and odd pieces here and there that actually worked out quite well. Just a shame they drowned in the mediocrity of everything else.

I am rating "Dragon Kingdom" a mere three out of ten stars, because this was by no means an outstanding or particularly memorable fantasy movie.