Review of There Be Dragons (2011) by Ulises R — 18 Feb 2012

A great visual style, as you would expect from Roland Joffeâ(TM), but it ultimately lacks the narrative power of his better works, notably The Killing Fields. The production values and overall world building of civil war torn Spain was excellent, but the more modern storyline, to which the film often flashbacks to, was less convincing (especially the â~agedâ(TM) Wes Bentley), and often undermined the more compelling earlier story. I also felt the themes were a bit heavy handed, a symptom of an unpolished script, one that also features some stilted dialogue. Olga Kurlenko, for her part, was amazing, and was certainly the most compelling character of this historical epic. At the end, you have a lot of great set pieces and some good story elements, making it watchable, but certainly not without some problems.

3/5 Stars.