‘Dragon Soldiers’ DVD Review
Stars: Butch McCain, Asa Forsyth, Motown Maurice, Dan Sinclair, Arielle Brachfeld, Tarkan Dospil, Heath C. Heine, Ruben Pla, Antuone Torbert | Written by Dan Sinclair | Directed by Hank Braxtan
Hank Braxtan, director of Snake Outta Compton and co-writer of Giant Killer Ants is back behind the camera for another giant monster movie, written by Braxtan’s …Ants co-writer Dan Sinclair, this time taking on an all-together more fantastic beast (or beasts) – a killer dragon! And we’re not talking a dragon living in the dark ages, nope, this is a dragon terrorising the woods that surround a suburban area, killing anyone who gets near. So what is a towns mayor to do? Hire a group of mercenaries to go and take out the dragon!
Much like the two aforementioned films, Dragon Soldiers does exactly what it says on the cover – sees soldiers take on a dragon, Although, at first, the soldiers here think they’re taking on a local military that are terrorising the locals and killing folk… all thanks to the shifty mayor, who insists the “stories” about a monster in the woods is just that.
The most noticeable thing about Dragon Soldiers is that it doesn’t feel like the two other monster movies Braxton has been involved with – both of which were parodies of the genre. Here Braxtan plays things a little more seriously. I say little and I do mean little, there’s still a ridiculous amount of bad humour, poor jokes, overly macho soldiers who are almost a parody of the soldiers seen in the likes of Predator etc., this is like an 80s action flick turned up to eleven, on a budget of about eleven. Dollars that is!
Yet for all that, Dragon Soldiers still manages to create a modicum of tension and horror, even if it everything feels a little too silly to be taken THAT seriously. Although if you’ve seen any Syfy channel monster movie, be they by The Asylum or not, you’ll know exactly what to expect from this film. In fact it follows that blueprint to almost the letter, right down to the use of ropey CGI in place of the gunfire, blood splatter and – of course – for the titular monster; which, by the way, doesn’t look that bad, coming across as suitably evil and menacing.
But hey, if you like that sort of thing, and I (and plenty of others I know) do, then there’s a lot to enjoy about Dragon Soldiers, and I mean that in the most un-ironic way possible – this is just fun all the way; and you have to appreciate a film where the hero slays the dragon with a Magnum inscribed with the name Excalibur. Plus, despite its limitations, this story is a damn site better than Sinclair & Braxtan’s script for Giant Killer Ants!
Dragon Soldiers is on DVD now from Dazzler Media.
