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 ou can't really say that Dean Cain, the star of
"Dragon Fighter", has fallen on hard times by appearing in this
Made-for-TV film because, in truth, he never achieved much beyond the status of
TV star. The recognition comes from his tour of duty on TV's "Lois and
Clark", a dreadful and (unfathomably) feminine version of the Superman
mythos. Beyond TV, Cain has done some movies, but nothing of note, even though I
believe he has the talent to rise higher than his current station.
With "Dragon Fighter," Cain plays Carver, a
happy-go-lucky military Captain assigned to be the new chief of security at an
ultra secret underground laboratory experimenting in cloning. The head scientist
is Russian, and besides redefining the title Mad Scientist, has procured a new
DNA sample for his team to work on. The result of their new cloning activity is
a dragon -- yes, the fire breathing variety ala "Reign
of Fire". No sooner does the dragon wake up does it eats two of the
scientists! (I hate it when that happens.) Now trapped in the claustrophobic
confines of their secret lab with one very ticked off lizard, the scientists,
led by tough guy Carver, must fight their way out or become snacks!
"Dragon Fighter" began life as a Sci-Fi Channel
original movie, and because of that perhaps its fate was sealed even before its
premiere showing. The small TV budget is obvious, the cgi looks like something
that could be done on a kid's Macintosh, and the acting ranges from atrocious to
hilarious to just silly. Star Dean Cain is probably the only thespian to leave
"Dragon Fighter" (figuratively) alive, mostly because he has enough
charisma and affability as a person that those personalities transfer over to
his character. With better material, there's no doubt Cain could do much better
work, but "Dragon Fighter" is simply a paycheck and nothing more.
Besides sporting a terrible title ("Dragon
Fighter"?) the film's director, Direct-to-Video veteran Phillip Roth,
has decided to employ the multiple split screen technique made popular by the TV
show "24". But whereas "24" used split screens as a
necessary device in order to tell its multiple storylines, the technique comes
across as superfluous in "Dragon Fighter." More often than not, the
split screens pop up to reveal different facial reactions of multiple people in
the same room, leaving me to wonder, "Why?" Really, do I really care
what a side character whose name I don't even remember (and who is destined to
die very soon) "feels" about every given situation?
Once the dragon is cloned and born (a total of 15 minutes
of screen time, and about 4 hours according to movie time, making it the fastest
cloning process in history!), the killings begin. The movie becomes a Slasher
film, complete with idiot characters that bicker and split up at the first
opportunity. (All the better to be killed, of course.)
As mentioned, Dean Cain survives "Dragon Fighter"
with the least scars, although I'm sure his integrity as an actor took some
lumps. Love interest Kristine Byers, on the other hand, doesn't fare so well;
her character is supposed to be a genetic scientist, but dresses, looks like,
and acts like Daisy from TV's "The Dukes of Hazard". Because there is
so little interest in the film prior to its showing, it was nearly impossible
for me to find a full cast list. So I don't know who the actor playing the lead
Russian Mad Scientist is, and maybe it's just as well since he shows very little
promise. Robert DiTillio, as the facility's Systems Analyst, does his best
Hudson interpretation, but it's not nearly enough to justify his silly presence.
There is one thing about "Dragon Fighter" that
kept me interested. It's this: Cain's character, Carver, has been assigned to
take over as chief of security at the facility, but everyone, including Head Mad
Scientist Man, keeps saying to Carver that he is only an observer, and has no
authority. Which, of course, is wrong, since the film mentions more than once
that Carver is not there as just an observer (and thus powerless)
but is in fact the new chief of security. Why, then, does Head Mad
Scientist Man keep saying that Carver has no authority to do anything? Even
better, why does Carver keep acting like he has no authority?
Hmm, I smell bad plotting…
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