This movie (a generous description) is bad on so many levels, and I can't even give it the caveat of "at least they were trying to tell their own story". Because they weren't. It slowly becomes more obvious that they wanted to make a bigger, meaner Dog Soldiers, and I'm fairly certain the ' twist reveal' is just a slightly reworded version of the reveal in that movie.
The acting is slightly below average. About what I expect from low budget films. The characters are quite unbelievable, and they're so poorly written. I mean, who is told they have to bring two trusted soldiers with them into the wilderness to hunt a creature and chooses to bring the 'soldier' who needs crutches to walk around? It's not like it was some hacking mission and she was the only computer expert you could get.
The script isn't doing the actors any favors with lines like "It won't be like last time" and "I don't blame you for what happened that last time", yet we never know what happened on that last mission that would cause these three women to have such PTSD and trust issues. Also, I don't think it's common for military types to call each other by first names like they're at a family gathering.
The plot itself is thin, and nothing supports it at all. Just lots of egregious errors that reveal how amateur everyone was. And, again, there isn't even the caveat of them having a story but no budget. Problems like:
-These three soldiers are supposed to go capture a reported creature, yet they bring no hunting or trapping supplies with them. Were they just going to ask the creature to politely buckle up in the back of their SUV? Do any of them have experience tracking an animal in the wild? Shouldn't they have sat phones and surveillance equipment and other things for a hunting expedition?
-There's a dragon 'nest', which was just a prop egg in the middle of a clump of grass near a rock. No one on the production even bothered to make a little ring of rocks or sticks to indicate it was a nest. And from the point of view of someone who knows stuff about animals, it was one of the worst places to build a nest to begin with.
-The scientist in charge says he can't tell if this is an insect, reptile, or bird egg - but whomever was in charge of props couldn't pretend to make it look like anything other than a giant chicken egg.
-Said egg eventually hatches and the baby gets out, but then nothing ever comes of there being a baby dragon. It's not like the adult stops attacking because they had their baby back, nor does the baby get a surprise kill because no one expected it to be hiding in the house with them.
-After one brief dragon attack, the head scientist suddenly knows all about what kind of hunters these dragons are, and what they are and aren't capable. Watching one woman get pounced on does not convey superior intelligence or tactics.
-For some reason there are B-plots about radiation (though two of the characters carry the K1 pills in a little baggie like they're tabs of molly) and the dragons being psychic. Neither seem to really influence anything, and neither get resolved. Especially the psychic noise from the dragons. What could have been an interesting tool for the team to use is pointless and just gives an excuse for one of the characters to scream and moan while everyone else thinks she's crazy.
I'm not taking any stars away for the bad computer graphics (they looked like something from late Playstation 1 graphics, maybe early PS2) because I understand that low-budget means you work with what you have. However, I AM taking away stars because there's only one creature that ever actually looks like a dragon. The character design was outrageously bad, and no one would look at the bipedal vulture-scorpion-thing and think to themselves "That's a dragon!" It looked more like a gargoyle in size and shape, and it didn't look like it could grow up to become the dragon that is finally shown at the end.
Pass on this. Hard. It doesn't have a long runtime, but it drags on forever. The only thing memorable is how much I hated myself for enduring it.
The acting is slightly below average. About what I expect from low budget films. The characters are quite unbelievable, and they're so poorly written. I mean, who is told they have to bring two trusted soldiers with them into the wilderness to hunt a creature and chooses to bring the 'soldier' who needs crutches to walk around? It's not like it was some hacking mission and she was the only computer expert you could get.
The script isn't doing the actors any favors with lines like "It won't be like last time" and "I don't blame you for what happened that last time", yet we never know what happened on that last mission that would cause these three women to have such PTSD and trust issues. Also, I don't think it's common for military types to call each other by first names like they're at a family gathering.
The plot itself is thin, and nothing supports it at all. Just lots of egregious errors that reveal how amateur everyone was. And, again, there isn't even the caveat of them having a story but no budget. Problems like:
-These three soldiers are supposed to go capture a reported creature, yet they bring no hunting or trapping supplies with them. Were they just going to ask the creature to politely buckle up in the back of their SUV? Do any of them have experience tracking an animal in the wild? Shouldn't they have sat phones and surveillance equipment and other things for a hunting expedition?
-There's a dragon 'nest', which was just a prop egg in the middle of a clump of grass near a rock. No one on the production even bothered to make a little ring of rocks or sticks to indicate it was a nest. And from the point of view of someone who knows stuff about animals, it was one of the worst places to build a nest to begin with.
-The scientist in charge says he can't tell if this is an insect, reptile, or bird egg - but whomever was in charge of props couldn't pretend to make it look like anything other than a giant chicken egg.
-Said egg eventually hatches and the baby gets out, but then nothing ever comes of there being a baby dragon. It's not like the adult stops attacking because they had their baby back, nor does the baby get a surprise kill because no one expected it to be hiding in the house with them.
-After one brief dragon attack, the head scientist suddenly knows all about what kind of hunters these dragons are, and what they are and aren't capable. Watching one woman get pounced on does not convey superior intelligence or tactics.
-For some reason there are B-plots about radiation (though two of the characters carry the K1 pills in a little baggie like they're tabs of molly) and the dragons being psychic. Neither seem to really influence anything, and neither get resolved. Especially the psychic noise from the dragons. What could have been an interesting tool for the team to use is pointless and just gives an excuse for one of the characters to scream and moan while everyone else thinks she's crazy.
I'm not taking any stars away for the bad computer graphics (they looked like something from late Playstation 1 graphics, maybe early PS2) because I understand that low-budget means you work with what you have. However, I AM taking away stars because there's only one creature that ever actually looks like a dragon. The character design was outrageously bad, and no one would look at the bipedal vulture-scorpion-thing and think to themselves "That's a dragon!" It looked more like a gargoyle in size and shape, and it didn't look like it could grow up to become the dragon that is finally shown at the end.
Pass on this. Hard. It doesn't have a long runtime, but it drags on forever. The only thing memorable is how much I hated myself for enduring it.