I had lofty hopes for Dragon Wars which is in theaters everywhere starting today. From the web traffic gravitating toward my original Dragon Wars post, I wasn’t alone. Others were stoked too about the possibility of an old school Godzilla type movie. Something better than Hollywood Godzilla. Something like the Godzilla battles we used to lay on the carpet and watch on TV. Watching bigger than screen monsters tear up cities is juvenile pleasure. The characters and plot don’t have to make too much sense as long as there is plenty of destruction and carnage.

Dragon Wars holds a scattered few minutes to these expectations and the rest is a mess.

My son is writing and reviewing movies for his school paper and needs to turn in two movie theater reviews each month. He has his eyes on Mr. Woodcock and Dragon Wars. After seeing the latter, we should have gone to the former. Or maybe not, stay with me as we ride the dragon’s tale through this review.

The plot, the backstory
The basic plot of Dragon Wars is that every 500 years this woman needs to be sacrificed. A bad dragon, some evil dude who can turn from human form to Skeletor on command and an army that can materialize out of thin air are pursuing this woman. There is a chosen one with some sort of protective medallion that is trying to keep the woman from being sacrificed and some friendly wizard guy who keeps rambling about getting to a cave. Dragon Wars spends way too much time at the start of the film trying to tell a boring backstory only to fast forward 500 years in the future where a young TV reporter is the modern day medallion wearing savior and the wizard pops in and out of scenes inexplicably.

That’s about it for plot — that we can understand. If that doesn’t make sense, relax, you’re in Dragon Wars territory now. It doesn’t have to make sense.

Barely coherent acting, from the human actors, not the CGI ones
The characters are there to either be playthings, appetizers or caught hopelessly in the middle of the bad dragon and the army of skeletor-like dudes marching to defeat the US of A army all over the city. Acting? Achingly bad, including the TV reporter’s sidekick who is a bad Bernie Mac wannabe. About the coolest part of the movie is the real army fighting the dragon army but by then you’re caring more about your popcorn and drink running low. Hey look, it’s the semblance of the movie we wanted to see. About 45 minutes too late!

I found myself wanting the dragon to just gulp down the woman with the mark of the tattoo and burp proudly. Aliens vs. Predator this is not, not, not.

Summary and grade
After seeing this and writing the review I checked out Rotten Tomatoes. The critics are slaying the dragon too (14%), and Mr. Woodcock isn’t faring much better (15%). Maybe we need to wait for something better to come out next weekend or the weekend beyond?

Save your money, friendly readers and movie fans, Dragon Wars is worse than a case of dragon-sized indigestion. It would be a complete failure if not for a scant few cool effects. But you can see those in the trailer on the web for free. Grade: D-

• Dragon Wars movie looks promising
• 25 GB paper DVD
• Buying Star Wars 3 advance tickets
• Some will be watching Spider-man 3 in theaters for breakfast
• 22 additional signs for the game Rock, Paper, Scissors
• Star Wars TV show staging for 100 episodes