I'd like to say there are spoilers in this review, but that would be a bit like writing a review of Titanic and wondering whether you should mention the ship sinks. In other words...bloody obvious to everyone. So with this latest SyFy (I'll never get used to that spelling without giggling at the idiocy of it) effort it will come as little surprise to anyone familiar with their movie outings that it is beyond awful.
For a start it seemed like it might be a valiant attempt by SyFy to do something worthwhile. Retell Moby Dick with a fantasy setting as a backdrop and make the whale into a dragon. Cast Dany Glover and Vinnie Jones and make it, for SyFy at least, halfway respectable.
However, once the novelty of Hermann Melville's classic transposed to fantasy wears off, the viewer is left hunting for things that make the effort of sitting and continuing to watch worthwhile. Sadly, the only thing that made this possible for me was the presence of Vinnie Jones.
Now, Vinnie is hardly what you'd call an accomplished actor. With his accent, looks and rep he's limited to thuggish hard man roles. At least SyFy didn't try to play him against type and here, as in his other similar roles, he carries off the role quite well. No awards, but his enthusiasm is infectious and it kept me watching.
At least, right up until his character perished.
After that, it becomes painfully obvious that the rest of the cast, including Glover, have about as much chance of carrying the film as a paper bag has of carrying water. And, like the metaphorical bag, the movie becomes a soggy mess that falls apart very quickly.
Beyond dear Vinnie's character's demise, the movie quickly becomes stale and dull. It becomes a chore to watch the rest of it. The acting is wooden, apart from Glover, who mugs atrociously and seems intent on playing Ahab as an Alzheimer's sufferer. But the rest are no better.
As for the effects, they are about as convincing as you might expect for the SyFy channel, which is to say, grimace-inducing. Is it only me that yearns for the good old days of stop-motion animation? But even the CGI dragons have more acting talent than some of the cast.
All in all not a very good movie. In fact pretty awful. A nice premise ruined by bad acting, shoddy effects, lack of money and most of all, lack of people who care about what they are doing.
For a start it seemed like it might be a valiant attempt by SyFy to do something worthwhile. Retell Moby Dick with a fantasy setting as a backdrop and make the whale into a dragon. Cast Dany Glover and Vinnie Jones and make it, for SyFy at least, halfway respectable.
However, once the novelty of Hermann Melville's classic transposed to fantasy wears off, the viewer is left hunting for things that make the effort of sitting and continuing to watch worthwhile. Sadly, the only thing that made this possible for me was the presence of Vinnie Jones.
Now, Vinnie is hardly what you'd call an accomplished actor. With his accent, looks and rep he's limited to thuggish hard man roles. At least SyFy didn't try to play him against type and here, as in his other similar roles, he carries off the role quite well. No awards, but his enthusiasm is infectious and it kept me watching.
At least, right up until his character perished.
After that, it becomes painfully obvious that the rest of the cast, including Glover, have about as much chance of carrying the film as a paper bag has of carrying water. And, like the metaphorical bag, the movie becomes a soggy mess that falls apart very quickly.
Beyond dear Vinnie's character's demise, the movie quickly becomes stale and dull. It becomes a chore to watch the rest of it. The acting is wooden, apart from Glover, who mugs atrociously and seems intent on playing Ahab as an Alzheimer's sufferer. But the rest are no better.
As for the effects, they are about as convincing as you might expect for the SyFy channel, which is to say, grimace-inducing. Is it only me that yearns for the good old days of stop-motion animation? But even the CGI dragons have more acting talent than some of the cast.
All in all not a very good movie. In fact pretty awful. A nice premise ruined by bad acting, shoddy effects, lack of money and most of all, lack of people who care about what they are doing.