User Reviews

For a movie presented on the Sci-Fi Channel, this was pretty solid entertainment. No secret that "Wyvern" is the dragon in the movie that starts its killing spree just minutes into the movie and doesn't let up till the end. I must say up front that the effects for the dragon were very decent and not at all like the old computer-game effects that have dragged many a Sci-Fi Channel flick down. That gives this movie a major boost, because if the bad guys/monsters are credible, then you have some drama.

There is humor, action, and suspense here, with good acting, especially from Nick Chinlund, who is doing a rare good guy turn here. I can hardly look at the guy and not see Donald Pfaster from two episodes of "The X-Files" as an evil killer obsessed with Scully. And he does a good job here as a trucker with a past, doing odd jobs around the Alaska town that he's the relative newcomer in. Of course, he reveals that past in a nicely-acted scene with Erin Karpluk, who plays Claire, the owner of the local diner (who, by the way, is a total doll). All this during a lull in the dragon attacks of course.

I love monster movies where everybody pitches in to defeat the evil, and this movie is no different. Pretty much everyone has a purpose, but not everyone makes it.

Also kudos to the writers for keeping me guessing till the end about how in the world they were going to kill the dragon. More kudos for not having an extra dragon pop up or an egg hatch at the end. Dragon dies, people rejoice, credits roll. I enjoyed it and give it a 7 out of 10, as far as movies on Sci-Fi go. Watch this one the next time it's aired---you probably won't be disappointed.

This movie is pretty good for a SyFy channel movie. Not only are the characters fairly well developed but the SyFy channel actually got some decent actor/actresses for this movie. I did find it hard to accept the wyvern as it was portrayed. I mean they are suppose to be warm blooded reptilians. How can it rise out of cold Alaskan waters? Where did it come from? Why only one? The fat native deputy is a lugubrious moron, which is a shame. I have seen her in other roles where she is good. The Colonel is a stereotypical retired military type with delusions of alien invasion. Also how does a town of only 307 afford a police chief and a deputy? The Norse myths are an interesting anecdote for the whole movie plot. Not bad at all.

The dragon or dragons--don't understand their origin or if there's just one or many, nor do I care to much. I can't joke about the monster star who is the star of the film--indeed none of the characters take away from that flying evilly smart malignance. I don't remember better designed CGI; whatever amount of money used to make these things move and their blending realistically with the scenery was money well spent. I've seen the dragon breath on glass, swoops down, chomp ups multiple times; still not bored.

MO Wyvern deserves the original film title. Dragons in plot nothing new but what makes me highly recommend this movie is the set design and cast types--and the inventive ways the beast offs people, and cars and most spectacularly (and tad of a spoiler) a helicopter. And of course can't resist films where folks look everyday see on street. Even the two beauties look normal--and appear to wear bare minimum make up. A bigger aspect that makes the film a breath of fresh air, no crappy human drama weighing it down, no stupid attempts employing logical science with fantasy. This setting could easily be an alien world.

As an Australian , as much as i enjoyed seeing,

a christian-hopeful's obsolete-'wisdom' being useless and being outstaged-out of most scenes in the remaining of the film, the, a bit slow concerned-about-the-wheat-price Farley get a horizontal slice at about where a pouch's edge would be when he could've JUMPED aside , the classic tension building done relatively well (especially the careful light use of atmospheric-music) in this movie, as well as the camerawork being OK for close-up human responses during crisiis, the realistic mess during an emergency and other physical realisms, and the few self-doubt puns or moments of humor,

This movie's got some script/production to-not-dos , to learn ;

1 When a praticed radio operator is turning on their only chance at communication out of their isolation, is sitting at the controls, and UNlike a trucker, actually knows what communicaitons signalling and codes to exchange with whoever might answer their call , 1-2 Do NOT , have a mere trucker who's put one foot up on a chair showing off his balls , take the radio because he's the lead male actor.

2 When a female lead has just pointed out that they could wait for the emergency response after they've attempted an SOS , even though their responder has initially said try using a phone, (since they might make sure in a number of hours/days).

2-2 Do NOT , have her reponse to being driven out into the beast's lair , one of accepting the driver's / male-lead's choice , even if she's been a bit enamoured towards him , nor leaping to cling to the same decision-maker's chest like a helpless, hapless fawning weakling , when his descision's almost got her killed , and she should be ANGRY about him being wrong about whether or not it'd detect them, when her choice was disregarded and he just went ahead and did it anyway.

3 When in a crisis like this, with fuel for your generator running low , coffee is not everyone's n1. Priority , comapred to ... oooo i don't know ... how about their emergency radio?

4 Although some of the audience might've identified to a small degree with the male lead's truckie identity, do not PUSH YOUR LUCK , with whether or not the defeating of the beast ; 4-2 needs a truck to do it, 4-3 needs a rocking-riff to start when you're starting your truck in a near suicidal plan when if wanting to make it maybe more realistic , the other survivors would've tried to convince him to do something else or to keep waiting for the potential response from their SOS, 4-4 needs an absurd amount of 'wrestling knowledge' , were somehow that a reliable thing, to make sure that "a dragon" will end up clinging to the front of your truck and not say, clenched on the top, and trying to tear open the straps on the egg to release it , or say, simply STOPPING the truck , lifting it to get it's wheels off the ground, etc if it was meant to be that large.

4-5 have an cringeworthy woman-to-come-back-to supposedly heartwarming close-up of the female lead standing there with her rifle upon his return, while one of the truckin'tracks starts up because every hero 'deserves' a babe at the end. Tired, sexist (especially considering how much her own decision making and leadership was gender-downplaying-constrained for the most part except one scene), and it brings the conclusion down, from a foreboding/scare-movie, into-a ... feelgood- , -something...

when-what ... if a trucker KEEPS DOING, what a trucker can already do, then everything will be ok?

Give me a break. One of the main reasons why jobs are often lost in industries where single-skill-sets are FRAGILE ... not reliable ... is that there are not enough at-least dual or more COMPLIMENTARY skill-set people AMONGST them, when profit will looks the other way to making sure long term work will continue through investment, compared to SHORT TERM profits.

( in this case, plantations for logging-in-forestry )

So say , another survivor, being a plantation-owner/scientist , could've been 'the scientist' , compared to the sleazy? Doctor, who could still get munched, and there could've been ... pffff ... something useful at the plantation - supplies, ammo, doesn't matter. BEING THERE, is enough for the mixture and (vague) presentation of COMPLIMENTARITY.

Like that, there are quite a few B-grade action movie imbalances / believability nick-picking flaws with it that you could go over,

BUT, to it's credit, it does keep the pace-going mostly, there is one longer than it needed to be scene with the main leads sharing a few tender moments over a coffee (were there brand names? Probably) ,

plenty of humans get munched, :)

and, again as-an-Australian,

the hilarious lack-of-consequences for one of the female leads, pushing what's-his-name, the dopey one going on about the price of wheat, OUT THE DOOR, into "the dragon"s path, also gave me reason to smile, even though one might criticise that for realism. Not even apologetic. Not mentioned, no screaming from one survivor to another, nothing. Completely rolled over. :D

I could've given it less for the fairly ordinary believeability flaws, and it definately lost a few stars from the gender-bias and banging on about truckers,

but although the who was put on a podum was tedious, the who got-munched , was satisfying.

*urrrp*

Wyvern is a rather bad movie. The acting is below average. The plot has no real surprises, twists or turns and stays predictable till the end. The dialogues are sometimes stupid. The scenes with the wyvern however where nice. It's well animated. There are a lot of errors and strange things with the special effects. It doesn't make any sense, why the doors of the cars and houses always fly away, like... a wyvern, maybe. And it must be a really lightweight, too. It doesn't leave imprints in the ground, whenever it lands.

For fantasy- and dragon-fans, it should be about average. Anyone else probably won't enjoy it.

Wyvern is set in the small town of Beaver Mills in Alaska where trucker Jake (Nick Chinlund) is recovering after an accident in which he crashed his rig injuring himself & killing his brother. Nearby a huge cliff collapses into the sea & exposes a huge Dragon like flying reptile which promptly wake sup after being buried for millions of years & heads straight for the nearest food source, Beaver Mills & it's residents. Soon the entire town has come under attack from the flying flesh eating predator & it's up to trucker Jake & a few other random survivors to kill the Wyvern before it kills them...

This American & Canadian co-production was directed by Steven R. Monroe who also made the other SyFy Channel creature features Ogre (2008), Mongolian Death Worm (2010) & Jabberwock (2011) as well as directing the notorious remake of the even more notorious I Spit on Your Grave (1978) & one has to say that Wyvern is easily the worst of those films already mentioned, it's a really bad SyFy Channel creature feature that isn't even any fun & doesn't even try to do anything different. This is standard monster film fare that is throughly routine, predictable & drawn out, for all the depth in the script Wyvern has it could have easily been made into a thirty minute television program rather than a full length 90 minute feature film. Bland character's including a really annoying Deputy, a Nordic Hillbilly & the typical all American hero don't help & the monster itself just isn't that interesting with no back-story apart from what Hillbilly says about it & no explanation behind it's thawing out or how it manages to lay eggs (did it mate with itself?). The ending is forgettable without even a proper fight between the hero & monster, a few of the supporting character';s are killed off while a few survive but you won't care who & having only just finished watching it I can honestly say I can't remember anything about it.

There's a bit of gore, a guy has his arm bitten off & the gory stump & severed limb are shown a few times, there's some bad CGI blood splatter & not much else. The CGI computer animated Wyvern is actually quite impressive, it's detailed & fairly well animated but what lets it down is that it never really affects it's surroundings like when it lands the trees & bushes don't move & nothing on the ground is disturbed so while the Wyvern is a decent animated monster it looks nothing more than an animated monster that has little or no interaction with anything 'real' in any of it's scenes. Because the monster is a big flying reptile Dragon it's hard to believe that it could creep up on anyone without them noticing so some of the attack scenes are just poorly staged as this huge Dragon just appears out of nowhere, it's not like the survivors wouldn't see it coming literally a mile off, I mean what's in the sky to hide it? All anyone would have to do is keep an eye on the sky & you would know where it was. Or am I wrong? Am I missing something?

Filmed in Vancouver in Canada it's well made for what it is, the CGI effects are better than expected but there are plenty of other much better films with good effects. The acting is average, I hear that the cast is quite good with some veteran actor's but I can't be bothered to look them up, all I will say is I didn't recognise anyone myself.

Wyvern is your typical crap SyFy Channel creature feature that has decent CGI effects but is a total bore. I really can't think of a single reason why I would want to watch this again.

+1 Star for the opening and wow, nice effects for the Wyvern.....

It's cool seeing Donnie Pffaster as the hero!!!!

-1 Star when they are sitting around talking about what the creature is. They all saw it at that point who cares what it is? Time for a plan of action and then action!! Not talk about what it is!!!

-1 Star for the Wyvern being able apparently to kill the entire population of the little burg as they tried to escape the town

-1 Star for another stupid sequence lets call the Wyvern Drops doctor as bait sequence, that was dumb

+1 Star for Wyvern vs. Helicoptor!!!!!

Okay the end was pretty cheesey but where were they going to go????

Overall 4/10.