Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

jonathanruano Roland Joffe's "There be Dragons" aspires to the tradition of the great epic films, charting the life stories of Catholic priest Jose Maria Escriva (who became a saint) and Fascist spy Manolo Torres set against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Yet in contrast to the great epic films, my reaction to "There be Dragons" was quite mixed.The first ten to twenty minutes of this movie - which deals with the childhoods of these two men - is quite boring and probably could have been edited out. Then as Jose Maria and Manolo make the transition to childhood, their lives go in two different directions and the result is that this film consists of two different stories that have no relation to each other. The story that works is Jose Maria's. If you put all the Roman Catholicism aside, this movie is essentially about a man's struggle to stay a good person under very trying circumstances. We see Jose Maria endure one tragedy after the other and resist the temptation of giving in to hatred and anger - and we are fascinated, not least of all because Charlie Cox plays him so well. Unfortunately, Roland Joffe chose not to focus solely on Jose Maria and, because of this decision, "There be Dragons" suffers. For example, there is a dramatic scene in this movie where Jose Maria learns from his brother that the Red brigades are killing priests. Then in a later scene, we see Jose Maria make a dramatic escape from the church to avoid being lynched by the Reds. But the movie never takes the time to explain why the Reds are killing priests all of a sudden. Instead, Joffe's script is content to explain the killings in one line of dialogue: Jose Maria explains to his colleagues, "They hate the priests, because we are part of the system that makes them miserable." Somehow I think the anti-clericalism in Spain during the 1930s was the result of more complex factors than that. Another problem with "There be Dragons" is that Manolo's story does not work. To begin with, we are never told why Manolo embraced Fascism or decided to become a spy, though apparently it had something to do with how his father died. Secondly, Roland Joffe relies heavily on war scenes in order to dramatize Manolo's life, which would not be a problem except that his latest treatment of war does not move with the times. Francis Ford Coppola captured the horror and insanity of war in "Apocalypse Now." Joffe's earlier film "The Killing Fields" makes the war in Cambodia seem very real with its gritty documentary look. The first twenty minutes of Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" is a magisterial and shockingly authentic depiction of the landing on the beaches of Normandy. We feel the tension of the soldiers as they approach the beach and see some of them vomit. We see the hail of bullets come their way and kill many of them even before they land on the beach. We see soldiers screaming out in pain and their organs and blood strewn everywhere. These scenes are so brilliant precisely because they succeed in capturing the essence of war. But the battle scenes in Roland Joffe's "There be Dragons" do not even come close to that standard. Joffe is actually directing a war film that is not that different from the black and white, shoot 'em up war films of the 1940s and 1950s, which tended to sanitize war rather than capture its essence. As a result, the battles scenes in this movie are remarkably boring.Finally there is no pay off at the end of this film. I was led to believe that Manolo had a deep, dark and devastating connection to the Jose Maria's life. You could have fooled me! As I came to end of this film, I saw nothing deep, dark, or devastating about the connection between these two men, which was tenuous in the beginning and non-existent at the end. In fact, I was truly baffled about why Roland Joffe decided to tell two life stories instead of one. With "The Killing Fields" at least there was a connection between Dith Pran (Ngor) and Sydney (Waterson) which even thousands of miles could not sever. Yet in this film, you get the sense that you are dealing with two people, Jose Maria and Manolo, who would be perfectly content if they never saw each other again. Lastly, I was baffled that Joffe decided to make a film about this particular saint's life. Throughout the movie, I have not seen Jose Maria do anything out of the ordinary or remarkable to make him stand out as a saint. In fact, "There be Dragons" could have been about a simple man experiencing the Spanish Civil War and working through the emotional trauma of that war and it would still have worked. So overall a very mixed review for me.5.7/10

Saad Khan There Be Dragons – TRASH IT (D) First thing first there are no dragons in it, Bummer. As it's a period movie I thought there will be some dragons in it but hey it's all about civil war in Spain and no dragons (Sad Face). The movie tells the story of London-based investigative journalist Robert Torres (Dougray Scott), who visits Spain to research a book about Josemaría Escrivá (Cox), the controversial founder of Opus Dei. But Robert hits a wall, both professionally and personally, when his most promising source-his own father, Manolo Torres (Bentley), turns out to be his least cooperative one. Robert begins to unearth his father's toxic secrets when he learns that Manolo was not only born in the same Spanish town as Josemaría, but that they were childhood friends and attended the same seminary. The two men take radically different paths in life, with Josemaría dedicating his life to his faith while Manolo is swept into the brutal and tumultuous Spanish Civil War. Manolo descends into a dangerous and jealous obsession when the beautiful Hungarian revolutionary Ildiko (Olga Kurylenko) doesn't return his affections and instead gives herself to the courageous military leader, Oriol (Rodrigo Santoro). The production value and cinematography of the movie is great. They have spend lots of money on it but bad direction and tedious screenplay with mostly average performances by all actors makes it unbearable and laughable at times. Lily Cole was alright in a very small role. The performances by all actors from Charlie Cox to Wes Bentley to Rodrigo Santoro to Olga Kurylenko is good at times and horrible at times. There was no one good to direct them so they just let it go and try their best but most of the times it just didn't work at all. In the end, starting is atrocious and in the middle it gets little better but then again it ends on tedious note. Trash this one big time, don't even need to rent it!

3xHCCH This is a movie that has been well-endorsed by the Catholic Church here in our country. It is supposed to deal with the life of a saint, St. Josemaria Escriva, the founder of the controversial organization, the Opus Dei. I must admit that even if I had friends who were members of Opus Dei, I do not really know much about them or about their organization, only what I hear from the outside. I am mostly interested to learn the historical milieu of this film that is why I wanted to watch this.The story is told in flashbacks from the point of view of one Manolo Torres as his estranged son Robert interviews him about his friend Josemaria Escriva (who was then already on his way to becoming a saint in 1982). Manolo and Josemaria were childhood friends. Class differences broke up their friendship as the kids grew up. The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War broke them up even more, as Josemaria went into the priesthood and Manolo went with an anti-clerical militia group. Important revelations about Robert himself would also surface as his father begs for forgiveness for his past.It felt ironic that Escriva was not exactly the central character of this movie since all the publicity was about him. We do see the beginning of his organization of lay workers who lived together, much like today's Opus Dei centers. But other than that, Escriva was merely a side character in the main story of Manolo and his efforts to find redemption for his terrible decisions in his life. You will not really learn much detail about Escriva by watching this film, but you may be inspired to learn more about him. In fact, during the latter third of the film, the character of Escriva was not even on screen until the epilogue.The story was admittedly very slow to unfold (nearly two hours), but we are treated to some masterfully beautiful cinematography. I was excited to see the name of Roland Joffe as the director. It had certainly been a very long time since he gave us classics like "The Mission" and "The Killing Fields," and you can really see his classy touch here. For a film with heavy religious undertones, I was surprised to learn that Joffe was an agnostic. That may actually have been good for this film, as it did not go overboard with religious propaganda. The acting of the leads Wes Bently (as Manolo) and Charlie Cox (as Escriva) were proficient though a bit wooden. I also welcomed the unexpected presence of exotic Bond Girl Olga Kurilenko as Ildiko, the tragic woman in Manolo's life. I think this movie is worth the time to watch, and maybe even re-watch.

meitschi I have read many terrible reviews of this film and expected something bland and convoluted, but after a few minutes, the visuals and storytelling really drew me in. Yes, some parts of the dialog are quite cheesy or too obvious, and the combination of the stories of Manolo and Josemaria is far from perfect. But Joffé is a very visual filmmaker, and so he was able to achieve with his beautiful images (kudos to Gabriel Beristain for his stunning visuals!) what he wasn't perfectly able to do with his dialog: to impress and inspire.It was especially interesting how delicately and plausibly Joffé handled many real-life events from St Josemaria's life - scenes that could have gone terribly wrong in less expert hands. He also payed a lot of attention to visual detail - for example, in the end titles, the photos of the actors that portrayed real-life people are combined with real photos of these people.The less interesting storyline was that of Manolo, though the final revelations were nevertheless disturbing enough. (At the same time, the movie has an astonishing lack of both gore and even the slightest touch of sensuality in it - surprising for a film about war and a destructive passion... They probably didn't want to lose the PG-13 rating, did they? ;-))I guess, it's a movie for open-minded people with a taste for old-school movie-making, grand drama and big moral questions.