Review of Garm Wars: The Last Druid (2014) by Richard J — 19 Dec 2016

This could have been a classic. It had all the ingredients. A director who knows how to create beauty. A CG staff approaching sheer genius. Kenji Kawai's soul-searing music and a pretty good cast, but with little in the way of an intelligible story-line, the three main actors, Lance Henricksen - "Wydd", Melanie St.

Pierre - "Kara23" (Assassin's Creed, Barney's Version) and Kevin Durand - "Skellig"(from Dark Angel's "Joshua" to "Harbard" in Vikings on TV and a pretty impressive film career, which saw him in 5 roles in 2014 alone), do a reasonable job.

They are far more believable than the story itself. Where Garm Wars shines is in its quirky stuff, like the use of a Basset Hound as some kind of revered being that chooses to "bless" certain folk - an act which for some reason is respected by mortal enemies.

This inexplicable plot-item is typical of the whole film. It is a known part of cinematic wisdom not to underestimate the ability of one's audience to grasp what's going on - nobody likes to be condescended to - but to entrust one's audience with ESP is a mite over-reaching.

All that being said, me, I'm a sucker for Sci-Fi and particularly for human actors alongside incredible CG art and the breathtaking landscapes, from smoking wastelands to misty forests, superbly concieved war machinery that The Pentagon and any Steam-punk warlord would die for (pun intended) still manage to make this movie very watchable.

With the story unfinished, my hope is that a sequel will iron out the deficiencies of its debut effort which could so nearly have been a masterpiece.