While the film generally manages to avoid the worst pits, it still falls to some of them. The absolutely best thing about the film is, that it does not attempt to establish one side as the good side and the other as bad. The sentiment is fairly neutral, though it may be seen leaning more to Franco's side than to the Republican. It is also stated in the opening credits, that wars start long before the battles, and will end only long after those. Also true.The main characters appear to be fighting for both sides, and especially Kurylenko is doing a fine job. Other main characters include a good-willing Catholic priest who has to testify atrocities committed against the church. That the church is depicted as a victim, could be to some a 'refreshing alternative' in this contemporary context at least.This maybe sounds good to some, but unfortunately it does not seem that good. Many scenes are shot in dark, and at least I was totally confused what was going on then. Maybe it was a fault of my DVD and television set, but maybe it was not. Another annoying thing was the soundtrack that seemed to live its own life regardless of what was happening on the screen. I also wished that the film language had been Spanish and not English. Using English was a big loss of immersion for me.

I can see why many may not enjoy this movie, it is rather long at 2 hours and involves a moderately complex story which includes the Spanish civil war in the 1930s. But I enjoyed it for the good story that it is.While most of the story is fictional, one of the two principal characters is real, Charlie Cox as Josemaría Escrivá, born in 1902 and who became a Catholic priest. He died in 1975 and in 2002 was canonized as a Saint in the Catholic Church. He founded Opus Dei which is simply a way of looking at faith and service as a daily mission, involving the ordinary things in everyday life. One priest who knew Josemaría Escrivá very well says that the film's portrayal of him is basically very faithful.However the character that Wes Bentley plays, Josemaría Escrivá's childhood friend Manolo Torres, who became involved in the civil war, is entirely fictional as far as anyone can tell. Bentley plays him as a young man in his 20s and 30s, and also as an old man on his deathbed.Which brings in Dougray Scott as the old man's son, Roberto Torres, also a fictional character, who is doing research on Josemaría Escrivá and wants his elderly father's views. They have not spoken in 8 years, and Roberto doesn't understand why. But it becomes the key element of the resolution of the story.There is an early scene where the kids are being told about dragons, more in the sense of demons, and that is built upon for the title of this movie. In the end the old man tells his son that he can tell him the whole story "but there will be dragons."SPOILERS: It turns out that Manolo was about the complete opposite of Josemaría Escrivá. Their lives went in separate directions. Manolo's motto always was "pick the winning side", regardless of your own principles. He personally killed people, or had them killed, but at the end of the civil war in a fictional scene where Josemaría Escrivá and others were about to escape to the safety of France, a sniper was about to shoot them but Manolo instead killed the sniper, saving his old friend. On his deathbed he still had the rosary given to him years earlier and had a vision of young Josemaría Escrivá standing there in his room right before he died.

There are reviews in IMDb that praise this movie. I don't know by what standard they measure movie making, but I would have to say that this movie is one of the worst movies I have seen in a long time. Lets take the music. It soars, but in all the wrong places. It emotes, with all the wrong signals. It is woefully inappropriate. It is so full of choral voices that I truly have to believe that the composer and arranger were reading a different script or watching different rushes when they wrote the score. Lets take the script. It is full of utterly trivial dialogue. There just isn't very much that I can say other than it is horrendous. The cinematography is not bad. The DOP did a fine job. The acting. Why is it that we haven't seen the lead actors in other movies? Could it be that when they put footage from this movie in their show reels they were automatically dropped out of contention? Good looking actors with poor scripting, and worse storyline. You have to sympathise with them.... really. So what on earth were people like Charles Dance and Geraldine Chaplin doing in this movie? You would have to believe that they owed the director or the producer a favour. I can't believe that they could need the money that badly! So do yourself a favour and return the DVD to your local store before you waste the time to put it in your DVD drive....

Spanish/US co-production developing dramatic deeds during Spanish Civil War and the historic figure about Jose Maria Escriba De Balaguer . Enjoyable biographic movie well written and played , being compellingly directed by Roland Joffé . Arising out of the terror of the Spanish Civil War, a candidate for canonization is investigated by a reporter (Dougray Scott) who aware his own estranged father (Wes Bentley) had a deep, dark and devastating connection to the saint's (Charlie Cox) life .This interesting film is full of compelling drama with love , passion and subsequent betrayal , touching scenes , historical events and good feeling . It is a simple , dramatic and intelligent portrait of a time when the Spanish people live taking on among them . This is an agreeable account of the survival of the human spirit against difficulties ; an epic portrayal of Faith, Forgiveness and Redemption . The movie is plenty of graphic , striking and memorable moments about timeless power of forgiveness and dictating a strong emotional response from the spectator , though some moments is unrealistic . Interesting and thought-provoking movie with evident excitement that can sometimes be undercut by inadequacies in the screenplay , being written and adapted by the same Roland Joffé . This moving picture results to be a breathtaking spectacle about dramatic consequences of Spanish civil war , including strong emotions , brooding dialog and a heartbreaking final . ¨There be dragons¨ or ¨Encontrarás Dragones¨ results to be other of the innumerable stories to deal with dramatic deeds regarding the Civil War background , a familiar theme about the global horrors of a fratricide war , impossible to forget to Spanish cinema . However the story needs a vibration more real than the one offered in this slow-moving and sometimes dull film . But anyway, its is compensated with the great performances from main cast as Charlie Cox as Josemaría Escrivá , Wes Bentley as Manolo Torres as Dougray Scott as Roberto Torres as Rodrigo Santoro as Oriol , Olga Kurylenko as Ildiko and sensational support cast , mostly Spanish , such as Unax Ugalde , Ana Torrent and Jordi Molla , interpreters who provided a considerable boost to the result . Furthermore , a spotless pictorial cinematography by Gabriel Beristain and a willingness , almost perfect of the elements of each shot , every sequence, every space .The film develops an intrigue by means of flashbacks and dealing with Jose Maria Escriba De Balaguer's life . The events were the following : during the Spanish Civil War , Escrivá was hidden in a psychiatric sanatorium and fled from Madrid, which was under republican control, via Andorra and France, to the city of Burgos, held by the nationalist forces of General Francisco Franco. After the war ended in 1939 with Franco's victory, Escrivá was able to resume his studies in Madrid and complete a doctorate in law. His principal work was the foundation, government and expansion of Opus Dei.The motion picture was well directed by the British Roland Joffé , being realized in academic style and general coldness , filmed in his usual formal and stylistic scholarship , without leaving a trace the thought-provoking issues , in terms of dramatic and narrative excitement . He is a good filmmaker mainly of epic subjects . After a long career filming for television , he made his movie debut in a big way with ¨The killing fields¨ winner of three Oscar and dealing with madness and atrocities committed by humans , Joffe's usual theme. ¨The mission¨, one of his greatest hits , had Palme d'or at Cannes , a graphic monument to Portuguese oppression in South-America , but Joffe has not quite held his place at the top level . He subsequently directed ¨Fat Man and Little Boy¨ referring to two atomic bombs dropped by America on Japan . Joffe's meagre output for the cinema makes it all the more surprising that he has turned out three splendid films and several others near-disasters such as ¨The scarlet letter¨, ¨Captivity¨, and ¨You and me¨. Rating ¨Encontraras Dragones¨ : Better than average , worthwhile watching .