Age of the Dragons (12A)

Time Out says

Tue Mar 1 2011

To be fair, the idea of remaking ‘Moby Dick’ with dragons isn’t completely terrible. Unfortunately, everything else in this Z-grade action adventure is. In a new career low, Danny Glover plays Ahab, the madcap captain of the Pequod obsessed with tracking down the white dragon that murdered his sister. US TV journeyman Corey Sevier plays Ishmael, the thrill-seeking recruit who gets more than he signed on for. Everything in ‘Age of the Dragons’ feels misguided: the performances are dire, the script lurches between TV-movie slush and cod-Melvillean poetics, the CG effects are limp and plastic and the white dragon isn’t even white. Perhaps most laughably, the fact that dragons aren’t an aquatic species means that the Pequod has become a bizarre ironclad shed on wheels, trundling up mountains and through forests with no visible means of propulsion. Ahab even has a foxy ass-kicking adopted daughter (Sofia Pernas) for Ishmael to go gooey over. Sadly, none of this is half as much fun as it sounds.

Author: Tom Huddleston