******Warning, Spoilers*******
While by no means a great film, suffering as it does from wooden acting and some pretty annoying music, Dragonslayer is somewhat better than the rest of the early 80's sword and sorcery films and for fans of the fantasy genre is worth watching for several reasons.
Firstly, the look of the film is very close to the Lord of the Rings trilogy - a dirt-under-the-fingernails, earthy realism combining costume and set design which looks like it could have existed in the sixth century with sweeping shots of the Welsh and Scottish locations where the film was shot. Curly haired Peter MacNicol even looks like a Hobbit! This is all a world away from the muscular heroes, scantily clad damsels in distress and fake looking weapons and armour in most fantasy films of the time, and interestingly foreshadows the look of Peter Jackson's trilogy. As an example of this, if you can find it, check out the mocked up trailer for a supposed Peter Jackson production of The Hobbit which has been floating around on the net - it's interesting to note how well the shots from Dragonslayer used in the trailer fit in with the footage from The Fellowship of the Ring.
(As an aside, the other film which Dragonslayer reminded me of was, bizarrely, Monty Python and the Holy Grail - the title sequence and plinky plonky music could almost have been lifted directly from Holy Grail, and the shots at the end with Ralph Richardson standing on top of the mountain are almost laughably close to the Tim the Enchanter scenes, probably due to very similar locations being used in both films, both being shot on the Isle of Skye in Scotland.)
Secondly, the film explores some interesting themes, principally the spread of Christianity in sixth century Britain and the consequent decline of the old pagan ways, represented by magic, and for that matter, dragons. The fact that to destroy Vermithrax the source of magic in the film must also be destroyed is quite a clever metaphor for the changes of the times the film is set in. This is very similar to some of the underlying themes in Arthurian legend, so fans of Excalibur may want to check out Dragonslayer for this reason.
Lastly, an honorable mention must go to Phil Tippets wonderful, stop motion dragon effects, which still look great today - again, they don't look at all out of place on The Hobbit trailer. It's easy to see why ILM was nominated for a special effects oscar in 1982 for Dragonslayer. Anyone bored with modern CGI should check this out - I can't help but wish that ILM had gone back to these kind of effects for at least some of the special effects shots in the Star Wars prequels.
Ultimately, Dragonslayer was a brave attempt to do a realistic fantasy movie, being set as it is in the real world and concentrating on character development for long periods of the film (the dragon hardly features in the first hour). However, it doesn't quite succeed, mainly due to wooden acting, the wonderful John Hallam excepted, and somewhat unengaging direction. Also, the ridiculously jaunty music at the end is completely at odds with the tone of the rest of the movie. Still worth checking out for fans of fantasy films though.
Rating - 6/10
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