Directed by Ryan Little. Starring Danny Glover, Corey Sevier, Sofia Pernas, Vinnie Jones.US, fantasy, 91 mins, cert 12.

Released on DVD and Blu Ray by Metrodome on the 21st of March.

Ishmael and his friend Queequeg sign on with a group of dragon hunters led by the mysterious Ahab. They hope to find their fortunes by hunting the flying lizards and extracting Vitriol, a volatile glandular excretion which gives dragons the ability to breath fire. In the quasi-medieval fantasy world of the film, vitriol is the chief source of energy, highly prized and valuable.

The Dragon hunters roam the land in a kind of armoured wooden tank, and hunt with harpoons. Once underway Ishmael is befriended by cheerful, happy-go-lucky harpoonist Chubb and first mate Starbuck, but earns the enmity of cook and vitriol extractor Flask. Flask is especially jealous of Ishmael because he fears he has his eye on Ahab’s comely adopted daughter Rachel.

Once on route to the hunting grounds, Ishmael finally meets Ahab who is horribly scarred from a youthful encounter with a white dragon that killed his sister. Ahab has become obsessed with the desire to avenge himself on the dragon, hunting it for years, even at the expense of the lives of his previous crew.

AGE OF THE DRAGONS (AOTD) sounds like a high concept joke, Herman Melville’s classic 19th century American novel MOBY DICK only with a dragon instead of a whale. Add to this the casting of Danny Glover in the Ahab role and Vinnie Jones smoking a clay pipe, and you might think you have the makings of a fun night in. You would be unfortunately mistaken.

Anyone familiar with the novel (or the 1956 John Huston film version with Gregory Peck) will recognise the bones of the plot described above. The origin of Ahab’s hatred of the white dragon is a departure from the novel, as is the addition of an adopted daughter (especially a ridiculously glamorous one who knows kung fu) but overall this is surprisingly faithful to Melville’s plot. And this is just one of many problems with this film.

Melville’s novel is not really plot focussed, it has long passages of reportage pertaining to the brutal realities of 19th century whaling, and builds a detailed economic picture of the industry. At the same time the novel is rich with symbolism and metaphor and explores many themes including class, racism and religion in great depth. AOTD keeps the basic plot but has none of the depth. This is actually even more of a problem than it seems. For a fantasy world to rise above the audiences natural incredulity it needs to made real, but there is no attempt to explore it at all. We are told vitriol powers the world, but we see nothing to show us how. In fact all we see of AOTDs society is one grubby tavern.

The land-ship upon which the Dragon hunters voyage is ridiculous, there is nothing to explain how it is powered (one assumes vitriol is used), and the thing (which looks like a Warhammer playing piece) would clearly sink into the mud after trundling a few yards. It is conveniently shot from behind an ever-present snowbank as it grinds away at 2 miles an hour, yet it seems to cross the land faster than the National Rail East Coast service.

The two leads Corey Sevier and Sofia Pernas (as Ishmael and Rachel) are far too good looking for the harsh environment their characters inhabit. Sevier sports the type of designer stubble that only modern technology can maintain. Pernas wears a fetching designer hoodie (I hope that’s fake fur) and is able to kick ass, except when wearing an off the shoulder night shirt, then she wails feebly until the hero turns up to save her.

Most damagingly the film never builds up the relationship of mortal enmity between Ahab and the dragon that it needs to. Glover chews up the scenery to little effect because the dragon action is so sparse (and he misses several great opportunities to say “I’m too old for this shit”). Whilst the digital dragon FX are considerably better than the average SyFy original movie at the level of PRIMEVAL on a good day, and there just aren’t very many of them. For this to have worked the dragons needed to be REIGN OF FIRE scary, and they just aren’t.

Stuart Barr.

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