Two Dragons, No Dungeons...

Who would have thought anything could have gone wrong with a sword and sorcery film starring Dollhouse's delightful Amy Acker, supported by B-movie stalwarts such as John Rhys-Davies and Arnold Vosloo?

Unfortunately what I failed to notice about The Dragon Chronicles: Fire & Ice, until it was too late, is that it was directed by Pitof, the man who gave us Catwoman (and not much else).

Acker is tomboy princess Luisa, whose father is the beneficent and liberal King Augustin (Vosloo) of the peaceful kingdom of Carpia.

Out of nowhere a fire dragon attacks the kingdom - the first attack in 20 years - and plagues the town for three months before Luisa decides to slip off into the woods and try to track down disgraced dragonslayer Allador...

Instead she discovers his son, Gabriel (Tom Wisdom), living rough with his manservant Sangimel (Rhys-Davis). Sangimel is a bit of an inventor and I could accept his creation of chemical explosives, firelighters and fancy weapons but all credibility went out the window when he produced his medieval cine-projector to give an animated talk to Augustin on the life-cycle of dragons!!!

And the great plan these geniuses cook up to defeat the fire dragon? Release a more powerful ice dragon - sleeping under a glacier - to kill it! Clearly they hadn't thought this through, but even I can see a major flaw in that plan.

However, the ultimate resolution of the situation is as wonderfully ludicrous as it is creative and kudos to the film makers for trying something a bit different.

The film takes an interesting stance on dragons, presenting them as gigantic flying manta-rays constantly enveloped with their 'element of choice'.

Made in Romania, the scenery is fantastic, the script less so and the cast aren't helped by some pretty shoddy lipsynching that suggests much of the movie was shot in another language (Romanian probably) and then badly dubbed back into English, like a '70s kung fu flick.

Produced by Media Pro Pictures - the Romanian company that also gave us the far superior Attack Of The Gryphon featuring another Whedonverse alumni Amber Benson - this was their first special effects/CGI film for their national television station ProTV in 2008.

There's even a novelisation of the movie available, written by award-winning Romanian children's author Stelian Turlea.

It has a similar story background to Attack Of The Gryphon, in that the action takes place between two small feuding kingdoms, but lacks the pizazz and chutzpah of its equally low-budget predecessor (dig the funky woolen chainmail armour or the painted cardboard masquerading as stained glass in the castle windows).

The Dragon Chronicles: Fire & Ice started off quite poorly and doesn't really get much better during its 82-minute duration, but there's a certain innocent naivety and charm about it that won me round in the end.

Certainly not one I'll be recommending to anyone who takes their film watching overly seriously, but as cheap beer-and-pretzel fodder for gamers and those with an interest in the genre it's a mild piece of harmless amusement, if not a classic.