Good movie but grossly overrated

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

The first must-see film of the year.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

A powerful but weary wizard, threatened townspeople in need of a savior, a young apprentice short on life experiences, a corrupt King, and a very powerful and aging dragon combine to make the greatest dragon and sorcerer movie made to date."Are you afraid of dragons? No, in fact if it weren't for sorcerers there wouldn't be any dragons." I saw this movie in the theater as a kid and I've watched it a dozen times since on television. I love it. Everyone plays their part perfectly. The wizard's keep has the appearance you'd imagine. The dragon's lair is scary and the dragon is as realistic as any creature of that size I've seen on the big screen. Even the journey the apprentice takes through the woods takes you back to a medieval time that never existed.This is a great movie that is under-rated on IMDb as of this review, but reasonably rated 86% on Rotten Tomatoes. The story is wonderful, the scenes are set well, the actors are perfectly cast, and only a few things could have been slightly better, which is why I've given this a 9 out of 10. I have yet to see another "dragon movie" that is Dragonslayer's equal.

In the kingdom of Urland, King Casiodorus selects a virgin maiden twice a year in a lottery to be sacrificed to an ancient dragon. Valerian (Caitlin Clarke) leads a group to find Ulrich (Ralph Richardson), the only one alive rumored to have killed a dragon. Soldier Tyrian challenges Ulrich to prove himself but the test kills him. His apprentice Galen Bradwarden (Peter MacNicol) with the special amulet intends to complete the quest himself. He discovers that Valerian is actually a girl pretending to be a boy. Tyrian intends to stop anything that could disrupt the way of life and kills Ulrich's elderly servant Hodge. Hodge tells Galen to spread Ulrich's ashes over a lake of "burning water". Galen seals the dragon cave entrance. Thinking it safe, Valerian reveals herself as a girl to the village. Tyrian arrests Galen. In the dungeon, princess Elspeth comes to see Galen and he reveals the popular rumor of the rigged lottery. She rigs the lottery against herself and is sent to be sacrificed.This is simple high adventure. Peter MacNicol may not be the pretty young face that the hero is suppose to be. He does have a good nature about it. Caitlin Clarke is a great heroine. Her story is compelling. The princess is great and so is Tyrian. On top of that, Vermithrax is a great scary dragon. He doesn't show his face until the last act like Jaws. This is one of the great dragon movie.

This is a very good Sword and Sorcery movie. It came out in 1981 at the height of the Dungeons and Dragon popularity. I first saw this movie in the Heritage Park Mall in Midwest City Oklahoma. Paramount released the movie but Disney did the animation and Industrial Light and Magic did the special effects. It's got the most real looking dragon I've ever seen in the movies. It was all done with models and puppets. You can see earlier versions of the effects in "Forbidden Planet" and "The Empire Strikes Back" and "King Kong". The story is set in the dark ages when the Celtic/Roman culture in England was first exposed to Christianity. It's your basic traditional dragon story. They did their best to make the buildings and clothing look authentic to the dark ages. I liked the part where the villagers convert to Christianity and are baptized with full emersion just as was done in the early Church. It's a good family film. There is a brief underwater nude scene and is scary enough that young kids might get nightmares. My favorite quote is "We don't do tests." I have the laser-disc of this movie. It's full screen and the scratches in the film are still there but the sound is good.

A strange fact that you see when looking at movies through the years is that movies featuring dragons for some reason never really perform all that well. Sure you have your semi hits like "Dragon Heart", but nothing that really sets the box office ablaze as it were. Take this one for instance, you can tell they put some good money into the film because at times the film looks terrific, however the movie did not really perform all that well at the box office. Granted it was rather dark at times and while there is a great fight between the hero and the dragon at a point in the film when he was trying to save that one girl who rigged the lottery so she would get chosen the ending fight was nonexistent. The story has a town and castle plagued by a dragon, people go to search for I think a wizard to help them get rid of said dragon. Well for some reason or other a man stabs said wizard and the wizard dies and they are now just left with the apprentice. The town holds a lottery and whose ever name is drawn is sacrificed to the dragon. Only females are drawn though. Like I said the dragon looks rather good and the one scene of the apprentice going to the lair is good too, but to often the movie bogs down and feels sluggish. Still, overall it was a somewhat good film that features a dragon so it was doomed to fail like so many other dragon movies.