n the 1996 movie Dragonheart, the "last dragon in the world"
died to rid the world of an invincible, evil king who shared half of the
dragon's heart. In this direct-to-video sequel, a "miracle" has caused a
new "last dragon in the world" to appear, potentially setting the stage for
the story to play out all over again. Fearing a prophecy that says the
heart of a dragon could doom mankind when a double-tailed comet appears, a
monastery adopts the hatchling, vowing to protect and guide him until the
comet and the danger have passed. Twenty years later, as the comet
manifests in the sky, elderly Master Kwan (Henry O) and his young student
(Figueroa) come to the monastery to test the dragon's heart for evil and
ensure mankind's survival, but they're turned aside by his aging guardian,
who insists all the world's dragons are dead.
Meanwhile, the king has become ill, and a strong, forceful knight, Sir
Osric, has been named chief advisor. Osric (Gorkum), a grim-faced,
black-clad man who might as well have "villain" tattooed on his forehead,
doesn't even bother to observe a five-day waiting period before revealing
himself as evil. Upon attaining his position, he immediately declares that
he's generously giving everyone in the kingdom two tunics, color-coded to
their hereditary rank in society--and "from now on, no one will wear
anything else." Of course, virtually no time passes at all before the
"gifts" are revealed as a way to keep the peasantry in their place.
One of those peasants is Geoff (Masterson), the monastery stableboy, who
dreams of being a knight and riding out on glorious adventures. Geoff soon befriends the lonely, isolated Drake (a
fully computer-animated character voiced by Benson), and begins pushing him
to fly them both off to someplace more exciting. Drake's emergence from the
monastery draws a great deal of artificially friendly attention, and Geoff,
as "the dragon's friend," suddenly finds he's everybody else's friend, too.
But as he self-importantly basks in Kwan's respect and Osric's gifts of
power and rank, Geoff quickly starts acting less like Drake's friend than
anyone else in the kingdom.
Passable, but also surpassable
A series of short documentary "making-of" features on the DVD edition of
Dragonheart: A New Beginning explain that the sequel was pitched at
younger viewers than the original, but that's hardly a necessary
revelation. Where the original Dragonheart at least made a stab at
leavening its wide-eyed fairy-tale wonder with irony, the sequel is an
altogether traditional morality tale that proceeds in an arrow-straight
line from the breathless-voiceover beginning to the
contractually-obligated-to-be-heartwarming ending.
Television veteran Doug Lefler's experience directing episodes of
Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess
shows through in New Beginning, which is packed with sword fights,
martial arts, bombastic bad guys and earnest good guys. The scenery is
gorgeous, the fight choreography's fairly complex, and the sets and
costumes are far more detailed and credible than the people wandering
around in them. Even the computer-animated Drake is reasonably convincing,
though his slightly cross-eyed appearance and flattish, relatively immobile
face make him look a little too much like a planarian. The acting's simplistic (which is
appropriate, for these simplistic characters) but sincere, and even some of
the low humor manages to be funny.
The main problem is the script, which packs its characters' mouths and
minds with clichés and doesn't bother to back up most of its dubious
assertions. Why is it necessary for Osric to color-code the populace,
when the kingdom consists of about three dozen people, all of whom are
either vapidly drifting castle-dwellers, reclusive monks or ditch-digging,
muck-covered peasants? Why is Drake so devoted to his stableboy "friend,"
who alternately treats him with contempt and naked greed? Why does the monk
who narrates the movie act so much like Gomer Pyle? From the kingdom's
bland acceptance of Osric's blatant power grab to Drake's instant mastery
of an impossible-to-master skill that suddenly becomes important to the
plot, New Beginning is crammed with implausible coincidences and
unlikely plot twists.
