It's not quite as sweet as 'Lassie' or as visually stunning as 'E.T.' but Dragonworld is an overall pleasant story. It is a bit too short, and slightly dated, but there is probably enough charm and magic for a young audience that has not been lobotomized by modern entertainment, cartoons, crude humor, action figures and all that jazz.After his the death of his parents, young John McGowen moves to Scotland to live with his uncle in the family castle. One lonely afternoon he wishes for a friend, and five minutes later he finds a baby dragon. We jump ahead twenty years, and John now lives alone in the McGowan castle with his dragon buddy, and nobody disturbs them, until a crooked business man finds out about the dragon and tricks John into selling him to his theme park. At first, John is relieved because he needs the money to pay off back taxes, but soon he finds out that his dragon is mistreated, and with the help of his new girlfriend and her father, they try to break him out. Happy ending.The dragon is a mix of three different effects, and only one of them works. There is a stop motion miniature, a cg dragon which flies, and a full size animatronic head and neck which breathes fire. Only the animatronics are competent.I think the appropriate age range for this movie would be around seven to twelve. Adults can enjoy this too, but not as much. Dragonworld is likable, but not lovable.

The kids will love this. Some adults may remember this fondly. I am one of the aforementioned adults; one who cannot wait for this to (finally) be released on DVD.This is a charming tale of a boy who finds a dragon and must figure out how to keep him. In spite of Courtland Mead, this was quite enjoyable, and belongs in any Dragon collection.The principal photography isn't anything to write home about, nor are the performances. I think, for me, it was the execution of the Dragon which made this so endearing to me.I was always quite fond of this movie for its heart.It rates a 7.4/10 on the Kid's Scale from...the Fiend :.

******may contain minor spoilers****** Its unfortunate that Jim Danforth, one of the true greats of stop-motion animation has been reduced to working on films as poor as this. The plot basically rips off Mighty Joe Young, with the dragon replacing the part of the gorilla in a very phony version of modern day Scotland. When an evil businessman puts the dragon on show in a theme park the heroes bust in and free the dragon, or sorry I should say they climb onto his back and he flies away since there was nothing really imprisoning him in the first place despite the fact that the villain went to the trouble of protecting the place with armed guards. Well this is just a very dumb kiddie movie sure to bore the kids. The best thing anyone has to say about this movie concerns the lack of violence in it, however in one idiotic scene where the villain tells the heroes that they should have read the small print before signing the contract, one of the heroes responds by punching him in the face. A later scene shows another of the heroes breaking into the park by bashing the two guards' heads together. To me this kind of violence is much more harmful in the attitudes it instills than the sort of thing that parents are afraid will give their kids nightmares. When some one wrongs you, you punch them in the face. Anyway this film is bad. To say that kids might imitate anything in it flatters it way too much. The acting is terrible -even for this sort of thing. I don't know what we're supposed to like about the lead character. The direction is just not there at all. The music by Richard Bland is just so insipid and lame that maybe you'll want to turn the sound down completely and draw your attention to the shoddy editing, boring composition, uninspired use of cinematography, and overall bad use of the language of film. The only redeeming thing about this film is the stop-motion animation which from an animation point of view is good with a few very impressive scenes hindered only by bad plate photography and the goofy design of the dragon. The animatronic versions of the dragon do not tie in very well with the animation. While the special effects aren't that impressive next to Jurassic Park, the animation is a step up from those famous Ray Harryhausen films. All in all a bland, boring, cliche-ridden film that kids will not want to watch.

If you're big on deep plotlines and hate predictability, I cannot recommend this movie. This is basically a children's film where good triumphs over evil and everyone ends up happily. The effects aren't nearly what today's modern kid is used to (no Jurassic Park/Star Wars I caliber computer animation here), but it is a gentle and sweet story that sucked *me* in, and I'm 20. It's a good movie for children to see--no violence, no language--and it introduces them to the beauty and a wee bit of the mythology of Scotland in a way that they will probably find entertaining. Parents might find the movie a bit tedious, but at least it doesn't pander to that obvious kind of low humor where people are repeatedly getting hit with various objects. Stick around for the lovely scenery and Sam MacKenzie's beautiful Scots brogue (why my roommate and I remained glued to the screen). In an era when heros are all-too-often covered in blood and even the cartoons are cursing like sailors, it's a nice little film that, while predictable, you can at least trust not to pollute any minds.