DragonHeart

Cohen and Pogue never get a firm grip on how they wish to play this movie. Myth or mirth? Terror or tease? Draco's fire-breathing aim is mercifully off the mark when buzz-bombing villages, but microwave-sharp when it comes to heating dinner. [31 May 1996, p.3]

While no reasonable person over the age of 12 would presumably be able to take it seriously, it nevertheless has a lighthearted joy, a cheerfulness, an insouciance, that recalls the days when movies were content to be fun. Read full review

Instead of being drawn into Dragonheart‘s tale of swords and sorcery, I frequently sat there thinking things like Gee, I wonder how much time it took Connery to record his lines. It’s too bad, because in other respects Dragonheart is a corker. Read full review

Engaging fare: part Dungeons and Dragons, part buddy movie - in the style of The Good, the Bad and the Very Ugly - and, finally, a tale of redemption. Read full review

Screenwriter Charles Edward Pogue and director Rob Cohen have reasonably literate fun subverting the knight genre. [10 Jun 1996, p.91]

The whole thing seems awfully familiar, not to say boring. Read full review

Dragonheart has what it needs at its heart - namely, the dragon. The rest of its story, about a disillusioned knight joining forces with the world's last dragon to help peasants overthrow a tyrannical 10th-century king, has a warmed-over quality. [31 May 1996, p.47]

For a movie set in A.D. 984 to succeed, it needs a handsome, swashbuckling prince or princess. Dragonheart doesn't have one. But it does have the regal voice of Sean Connery coming from the lips of a computer-generated dragon. [31 May 1996, p.46]

If you can accept Dennis Quaid as a post-Arthurian knight and a dragon who looks like Sean Connery as well as talking like him, there is a certain loopy charm to their adventures. But the rest of Dragonheart, with evil kings and distressed damsels, is such a warmed-over borrowing from better fantasies that it undermines the film's modest strength. [31 May 1996, p.05]

Great dragon, dumb script. And pity the poor actors who have to deal with that situation. [31 May 1996]