GEORGE AND THE DRAGON (2004)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

Though it's rare that I find much if any merit in movies I originally disliked, GEORGE AND THE DRAGON proves one of the exceptions.

On first viewing, possibly ten years or more ago, I thought GEORGE's tongue-in-cheek humor tiresome and its editing sloppy. (There's an early scene in which the toughgirl princess defeats three bandits, either killing them or knocking them out, and the fallen men simply disappear from the next wide shot showing what the princess does next.) And yet, if I judge this flick-- very nearly the only production credited to director/co-writer Tom Reeve-- next to the many films that weren't able to even get across a simple bit of formulaic entertainment, GEORGE comes off as at least a pleasant diversion. Its worst offense is probably referencing the medieval legend of dragon-slaying Saint George, since the movie is really just a generic sendup of dragon-slaying narratives.

George (James Purefoy) returns to Europe from the Holy Wars, intending to settle down in his native England. He brings along a Moorish buddy, Tarik (Michael Clarke Duncan), but after a little comic byplay, they part ways because Tarik wants to go outlaw-hunting. Back in England, George reunites with his aged father. Dad's happy to see Sonny back alive, but for reason unexplained he also has a real jones for his offspring to become a great dragon-slayer. No one's seen a dragon in England for a long time, but George's father insists that when George goes to petition the king for a plot of land, he should take along a dragon-summoning horn, just in case he gets the chance to call a dragon to fight.

The king has his own problems, for his daughter Lunna (Piper Perabo) has disappeared. A lordling named Garth (Patrick Swayze) offers to seek her out in the hope of winning her hand, and her claim to the throne, but George is willing to play retriever just for some farmland. 

George finds Lunna first, and discovers her secret: she's guarding the huge, unhatched egg of a dragon in a nearby cave. After the two of them "meet violent"-- Lunna clubs George when he makes an attempt to smash the egg-- Lunna explains that she befriended the mother dragon, before it flew off and disappeared, possibly having been killed by someone. Now Lunna will do anything to protect the infant dragon, and George's best chance to get what he wants is to abet her zany scheme.

Cutting through a lot of incidentals, George finds himself obliged to contend with Garth and his men, that same group of bandits Tarik went to find, and the mother dragon itself. In fact, George is able to use the dragon horn to summon the mama dragon at a propitious moment, so if anyone wondered earlier about the usefulness of that plot-point, that's the reason for its existence. In essence, beyond the side-plot of belligerent lovers realizing their romantic inclinations, GEORGE is a conservationist's wet-dream. The only dragons seen are the mother and its child when it hatches, and since they don't fly or spit fire, the broad implication is that they're just big animals who have been hunted to extinction. The story doesn't establish whether or not the species used to prey on human beings-- though Mama Dragon does devour a bad guy at just the right moment-- and so the script isn't entirely honest in setting up its moral dilemma.

I still found some of the humor dopey, but other moments worked okay, mostly because James Purefoy invests his simple character with a ton of conviction. Perabo and Duncan are adequate, but that's still better than Swayze, who always looks like he's sucking on lemons. Fight-scenes are competent but nothing special. GEORGE can't be regarded as any sort of Quixote-esque satire of either archaic dragon-slaying myths or their pop-fiction equivalents; it's too derivative for that. But at least its modern sentiments help it stand out from the crowd of low-budget knight-flicks.