Dawn of the Dragon Slayer's main perk is the film itself--the images it captures. Some of this is just because of the moody, green, secluded landscape itself, but I loved the lighting in the scenes by the fire, and the way the castle was actually somewhat dark, as it would have been in a time without electricity. The appearance felt pretty real to me.
I think it also deserves credit for not being your completely typical, war against good and evil fantasy movie. It was predictable, yes, and still somewhat typical, but it could have been worse.
Now, I can sum up my main--'main' being the key word--issues with Dawn of the Dragon Slayer in one word: underdeveloped. It seemed like no aspect of the film dove beneath the surface. So many ideas could have become these intricate, detailed marvels... but they were just ideas. So, a paladin can walk through dragon fire and kill a dragon, right? Well... that's basically all we find out about them. We don't get to see how Will becomes one. It just happens, and some special clothing gives him a bit of an advantage or something. Kate is a conjurer, and yet we see her conjure twice--maybe thrice?--for a collective twenty-five seconds.
The characters needed work, too. I'd seen them all before: Will, the country boy seeking revenge; Kate, the constrained princess who falls in love with the country boy; Rogan, the upper-class bully who's after the country boy's girl; Baron Sterling, the bitter father; you get the gist.
(On a random side note, I had to give the film two tries because the heavy music and chanting at the beginning gave me a headache. Did that have anything to do with the rest of the story?)
And the names. Seriously. You write a fantasy movie, and you name the main characters Will and Kate? Will... and Kate. Go ahead and pick a name that has been used in a fourth of all the fictional stories out there, but not more than that!
If Anne K. Black were to take a year or so on remodeling Dawn of the Dragon Slayer, I would see it. Until then, though, this will be a film that I only watch when I'm in desperate need of fantasy, romance, beautiful scenery, and don't care about the quality of anything but the latter.
