Paladin: le dernier chasseur de dragons

There are many ways for a film to fail, but most of the time it is all about bad story or bad acting or both. This film has decent actors and a rather acceptable story. However the direction and script are abysmal, making the viewing experience feel like mild torture. Poor Anne Black (the writer and director - ouch), she probably has the passion, but not the skill.

The story itself is more of a fairy tale, the sort of "man of the people rises against all odds and defeats evil". There is a girl involved, a competing pretender to her graces, a confused father, a wise woman and, more interesting, magic and a dragon. What does the film do with all this? A nauseating script, with bad dialogue, ridiculous action scenes and implausible situations that are only shadowed by the bad CGI.

It is unclear to me how one can screw up a fairy tale: we know the script from when we're young. The actors were not brilliant, but they were decent. The CGI was cheap, but there was a dragon in the film. So how does one make a complete mess of something like that?

For those interested in a fantasy epic akin to Lord of the Rings, with huge battles and action sequences, you may want to give this one a pass and stop reading here. If you don't mind a medieval romance film with a hint of fantasy and a dragon, then this might be for you.

The writing is good, and the sets and wardrobe are also well done. The filming locations in Ireland are breathtaking. The actors and actresses suit their roles, and the chemistry between the leads is fantastic. Their on-screen relationship blossoms naturally, without feeling forced.

Despite what some people on here may groan about with regard to the special effects, the dragon is actually quite good. It doesn't have that typical "SyFy Original" feel to it. But it doesn't have that Hollywood-budget finesse either.

You can tell this was a passion-film, with all persons involved working to make a quality film they could be proud to release with the budget and equipment they had to work with. The IMDb score does not reflect the true quality of Dawn of the Dragonslayer. My rating of 7/10 is based on this film alone, and not my feelings for it when compared to other films.

(First, I'm going to state that I am a well-educated person, with refined tastes. This is not meant to be perceived as a brag, but should rather help you trust me instead. Furthermore, I will let you know that -secondly- I created this account out of frustration caused by the other reviews. I just HAD to share my 2 cents with the rest of the world, in the hopes that -who knows?- perhaps I could save somebody 2 hours (or so) of his or her life. And last, but not least, I'm not alone in this opinion. So, here goes...)

I'm sorry, but it's more than obvious that my fellow reviewers and I have been watching two different movies altogether. Please, let me know whether there's another movie with the same title released within the same time period that I may actually enjoy. Otherwise this must be the ultimate proof that tastes are indeed, very different (which is kind of sad, since the other reviewers seem to be pretty clever people). Because, let me tell you, the one I watched can barely be called a movie whatsoever. In fact, what I've seen is this:

• a shallow script that left me with the impression that the writers had absolutely no idea about what they wanted to do with the story, where to move things, or how to tackle the action;

• computer animated graphics that would feel more at home in a B-rated video game (the "texture feel" of the dragon felt way different compared to the surrounding scenery - and a beautiful one that was, kudos to the guys that took care of that part, which is one of the reasons I gave this thing a grade above zero, another being that it seems they paid some effort in order to do this movie, too bad they couldn't pull it off eventually);

• terrible, terrible acting for the most part, except perhaps for the female roles (+1 to the final grade), dubbed by dubious fight motion choices and pre-high-school dialogue lines.

The general feeling, besides "Jees, who's going to give me all this time back?" was that I've already seen everything this movie (I keep calling it that out of respect for the people who really tried to make something of it, except that they failed by a long shot) had to offer, just WAY better. I hope that other people finally see it for what it really is, a failed effort and a general waste of time, otherwise I may start to think that there's something wrong with me and the people who share my opinion about this... movie, people whom I generally call at least smart.

This is the first review I leave on IMDb, but I thought this movie deserved it. Not that it's better than any other I've seen, but because the current punctuation (around 3 stars) is undeserved. First of all, I believe this movie has been released pretty much straight away into DVD/Blueray. That tells you something - it is not a blockbuster, so don't expect it! I can only guess that people rating it very low were expecting to watch a big Hollywood production. Well, it's not, but it's so nice to know that movies can still be made without famous stars or big bucks. I started watching and thought "well, here's something to watch on a Sunday afternoon when there's nothing else". I was wrong. I have actually paid to go to the cinema and watch overrated movies that were much worse than this one. The acting is good, the main character - an almost unknown actor - delivers good quality acting. The storyline is good, and the special effects considering this is a low budget movie are great! The scenery is beautiful and I was expecting the dragon to be awful, but it was another little good surprise. Come on people, give it a chance, you'll enjoy it.

As a fantasy movie that I had only ever heard of on Netflix I didn't expect this to be great. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the cinematography and the acting. Unfortunately it put me to sleep. There was some action at the beginning and the end but overall it just wasn't very exciting.

I'm not sure where this was filmed but the scenery was absolutely amazing, mountains, waterfalls, rolling hills. The strange thing is that there are probably only 9 or 10 people in the entire movie. No village scenes or big armies clashing, or other scenes that are common to fantasy movies.