Touches You

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

This movie has way too many shots of the same thing that makes the action sequences feel like a turtle running a 5k marathon. So many scenes should have been cut out entirely. Imagine watching the dragons fighting(doing somersaults around each other, then cut back to princess looking on, see dragons flying not really attacking each other, cut back to more looks of worry from princess, back and forth of this pointless dragon fights and worry looks for what seemed like way too long until finally i caved and just had to skip fwd a bit more until it was over. Bad directing is the key to why this movie sucked. The acting was alright i guess, some actors better then others. On the jacket it states "A Visually Spectacular(imo outright lie...unless they meant spectacularly awful), Fantasy Adventure(yeah its that) from the director of Catwoman(uh -oh catwoman sucked too)." That is supposed to be some thing good? (That made me laugh.) I mean the CGI is from 2008, it should be better then stingray like dragons that clearly don't blend into the background and looks real. Jurassic Park had better CGI then this and that was made back in 1993(so visually spectacular???? yeeeeah-right.) Costumes were meh.... I see they tried but it looks like a low budget webisode project and i've seen better webisode shows with much better wardrobe.My thinking is why did they even bother making this? Yeah, i only stuck around because Amy Acker(Angel) was a main lead.If your looking for a drinking game maybe watch this with friends and drink every time they say "dragons" or "princess", and you will be drunk real quick.

I'm giving this a 7 which I consider Average, could it have been better, well yes and yet for a Sci-Fi Saturday Night offering it could have been much worse. I've actually watched this a few times now the plot while predictable, is still enjoyable. Production values are better than a list of these movies in the Saturday Night offering from this network. The main actors are adequate and handle the material quite well without being over the top or just phoning in their performance. Some stylish camera work and lush color palette add to the Fantasy of the Film, from Director Pitoff who also helmed Catwoman, and was visual effects director on classics like Alien Resurrection, City of Lost Children. The Dragons CGI work is very good while lacking in some respects I have seen far worse on bigger budget movies, and its worth mentioning this movie had a Three Million dollar budget at the time the largest ever for a Romanian Film Production. So one lazy afternoon or late night you find this on Cable its worth a watch and if its in the bargain bin at your local entertainment store I'd pick it up. Fairly Kid Friendly too and they have far better imaginations and are much more forgiving that we. It's been 4 years since I reviewed this movie and here I sit watching it again, why? Because like wine this film gets better with age, for the fantasy dragons genre definitely better than others that have come out since it's original release.

This was a cheapie DVD from the supermarket checkout bin. It stars Amy Acker (Fred from Angel), Arnold Vosloo (Imhotep from the Mummy movies), John Rhys-Davies (from any fantasy movie which will stand still long enough for him to get into costume and nip in front of the camera), a chap called Tim Wisdom who I've never heard of before and never expect to hear of again given his achievements in this movie, and a couple of dozen people whose names end in -escu (which also applies to most of the crew).Intrepid princess Amy Acker gets stuck into finding a way of defending the kingdom from a fire-breathing dragon. Which involves setting an ice-breathing dragon onto it. Which, as it turns out, isn't actually that great an idea.Thing is, there's actually some potential here. Acker is OK, Vosloo is always fun, Rhys-Davies does his usual thing (Brian Blessed-lite), and the assorted -escus manage to be in the right place at the right time. More importantly, it looks good. The cinematographer plainly knows what he's up to, and the film is very attractively photographed. And despite a less than generous budget, the CGI dragons (clearly based on stingrays) are, for the most part, well animated and well integrated into the background plates, far more so than is usually the case for this sort of movie.But everything is massively let down by the script. Every plot development is either signalled well in advance or else is hugely predictable. There are constant exhortations to the princess to stay where she is, remain out of danger etc., and she takes no notice of any of them. By about the 10th time she has ignored all advice and rushed into peril, they even make a story point out of it.The -escus all swordfight by rushing at their opponent brandishing their swords over their head - clearly they all had the same swordfighting teacher, and he was crap.And regrettably the showdown scrap between the dragons is also crap - well animated, but nothing actually happens. And it doesn't happen A LOT. In fact you wonder whether it's ever going to stop not happening. And then factor in endless riding across the same hill, field, and bit of forest....In the end, though it's the script which lets it down.

The movie is so bad that I didn't even bother to finish it.The story is simple. We have this kingdom called Carpia or something. People living there used to be happy and all that stuff until a fire dragon strikes simply because it felt like destroying things. After all, that's what dragons do. The burn stuff and kill stuff. So the tomboy princess of the kingdom decides to be a hero and tries to reach an ex-knight who is known for being someone who knows ways to defeat a dragon. Unknown to her though, this ex-knight happens to be dead. However, he has a son so everything's OK. So the tomboy princess reaches this guy and asks him to get rid of the dragon, which he kindly refuses at first. He eventually agrees when she offered to pay him. I guess it's probably because: "Cash rules everything around me, C.R.E.A.M., get the money, dollar dollar bill ya'll" - Wu Tang Clan Meanwhile, the king is being persuaded to give in to the terms offered by the evil ruler of another kingdom in order to keep the dragon away.Seriously, if any of you who actually plan to watch this expect this to be as good as any fantasy-related blockbuster movie, then there's a problem with you. But this movie is flat out bad. Yes, even by TV movie standards. TV movies are known for having cheesy and amateur script writing as well as B- acting, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are always bad. On occasion, they are fun to watch. XIII is a great example.This movie however, has a really terrible script. While most things in the plot do add up, the characters are incredibly weak (A dragon slayer who cares only about money but later becomes a hero? I'm damned). No matter what they do, you just can't help but think that's just stupid (Charging in while the guards are changing shifts isn't an advantage). And given the fact that this is supposed to be set in the medieval times, there shouldn't be any projectors present at the time.Of course, given that this movie has a horrendous script, it's difficult to expect any good acting to be seen. It's actually surprising to see Arnold Vosloo in this flick, as you know, he had always been a good actor and was very consistent. Most of the actors/actresses are bad in this one, especially Amy Acker. I have to admit I'm kind of a Amy Acker fan. Still, I have to say that she's horrible in this one. If you can't perform well due to a bad script, at least get the accent right. In this case, her accent is just flat out unbearable. You can clearly hear the American accent in every line she says. Seriously, a Chinese like me can play out an English/Irish accent better than her, and it's not even like I'm good at playing accents. Amy Acker is just annoying the this flick.Maybe whoever in this film participated for a paid vacation? That's the best explanation I could come up with.The soundtrack and the CGI stands out in a positive way, not because they're extremely good, but because the other aspects didn't quite work out. That's why it's surprising to see watchable CGI and a somewhat original soundtrack which was actually close to bringing up the tone in the movie.To be honest, had this movie live up to its potential, it wouldn't score more than 6 or 7 out of 10. The whole movie was a bad idea to begin with anyway. This is also why I'm surprised to see a theatrical release in Romania, as this disaster wouldn't even qualify for a straight-to-DVD release.TV movies doesn't necessarily mean bad movies. While they are actually stereotyped as cheesy, that doesn't mean it's a bad thing. I enjoy cheesy movies and lines. I enjoy corny love-hate relationships and all that. You don't need a huge budget to make something great, you just need the heart and determination. You can clearly see that all of those who were somehow related to the production of this movie don't have the heart to make a good movie.And one more thing, Sci Fi should stick to science fiction.