Rise of the Damned

source: Rise of the Damned

Wyvern is a rather bad movie. The acting is below average. The plot has no real surprises, twists or turns and stays predictable till the end. The dialogues are sometimes stupid. The scenes with the wyvern however where nice. It's well animated. There are a lot of errors and strange things with the special effects. It doesn't make any sense, why the doors of the cars and houses always fly away, like... a wyvern, maybe. And it must be a really lightweight, too. It doesn't leave imprints in the ground, whenever it lands. For fantasy- and dragon-fans, it should be about average. Anyone else probably won't enjoy it.

It was great to see Barry Corbin, who played Maurice Minnifield and Elaine Miles, who played Marilyn Whirlwind, from Northern Exposure working together! It fits that the story takes place in Alaska. It is strange that her name does not appear in the cast listing. I normally don't go for this kind of science fiction but I was channel surfing and came upon it. It's neat that they mention the Wyvern of Nordic legend and manage to tie in global warming. I say neat because it wasn't just a Wyvern flying around eating people for no apparent reason (as if the genre needs one)! After watching it I thought, hey, someone could make a really crazy sci-fi version of Northern Exposure!

With global warming well underway and the polar icecaps melting, all kinds of long extinct beasties may be making a reemergence near A Small Town near you. Why, today it's a 'Wyvern'... What next? A Tyrannosaurus in Tynemouth? A Harpy in Harlow? Or, worst of all... the dreaded Tony Blair? Quick, recall all our world forces. Sod Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and all those other places you can't find on a globe... THIS IS FAR MORE IMPORTANT!! So, as our not-at-all underdeveloped supporting cast get eaten one by one, you may find yourself asking a few questions. Like: Why isn't the creature breathing fire as depicted on the front cover? And: Why are they only sending ONE helicopter (which is destroyed instantaneously) to a pretty explicit international distress call? And lets not forget the Ice Trucker guy, who in the midst of all this carnage can still spin a five minute yarn about how guilty he feels over not being able to prevent the death of a friend in an unrelated incident years ago. Guess who saves the day? The dragon looks nice (If not exactly a fluid mover) but this is strictly a modern day B movie... without the smarts to realise just how ludicrous it is. A waste of time for all involved, really... especially the viewer. 3/10

I say this because a lot of SyFy movies are bottom-of-the-barrel quality. Not Wyvern though, which is not perfect but entertaining and alongside The Lost Future miles above anything else SyFy has done. Visually it is not too bad, nothing mind-blowing with some scenes in the editing looking as though they had been hindered by budget, but the effects do look as though care did go into them and the scenery is very nice. Apart from an unnecessary music collage, the music is fitting and doesn't harm the film's pace. The script is an improvement on the usual cheesy and stilted dialogue usually in SyFy movies, and the story has suspenseful and thrilling scenes, not predictable and much more realistic than other SyFy movies with the main character having an interesting back story. The characters are clichéd in a way, but also likable, and the acting while not award-worthy is actually solid with nobody coming across as bland or hilariously bad. Overall, a good, solid movie, not brilliant, but compared to a lot of other SyFy movies it is watchable. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Wyvern is set in the small town of Beaver Mills in Alaska where trucker Jake (Nick Chinlund) is recovering after an accident in which he crashed his rig injuring himself & killing his brother. Nearby a huge cliff collapses into the sea & exposes a huge Dragon like flying reptile which promptly wake sup after being buried for millions of years & heads straight for the nearest food source, Beaver Mills & it's residents. Soon the entire town has come under attack from the flying flesh eating predator & it's up to trucker Jake & a few other random survivors to kill the Wyvern before it kills them... This American & Canadian co-production was directed by Steven R. Monroe who also made the other SyFy Channel creature features Ogre (2008), Mongolian Death Worm (2010) & Jabberwock (2011) as well as directing the notorious remake of the even more notorious I Spit on Your Grave (1978) & one has to say that Wyvern is easily the worst of those films already mentioned, it's a really bad SyFy Channel creature feature that isn't even any fun & doesn't even try to do anything different. This is standard monster film fare that is throughly routine, predictable & drawn out, for all the depth in the script Wyvern has it could have easily been made into a thirty minute television program rather than a full length 90 minute feature film. Bland character's including a really annoying Deputy, a Nordic Hillbilly & the typical all American hero don't help & the monster itself just isn't that interesting with no back-story apart from what Hillbilly says about it & no explanation behind it's thawing out or how it manages to lay eggs (did it mate with itself?). The ending is forgettable without even a proper fight between the hero & monster, a few of the supporting character';s are killed off while a few survive but you won't care who & having only just finished watching it I can honestly say I can't remember anything about it. There's a bit of gore, a guy has his arm bitten off & the gory stump & severed limb are shown a few times, there's some bad CGI blood splatter & not much else. The CGI computer animated Wyvern is actually quite impressive, it's detailed & fairly well animated but what lets it down is that it never really affects it's surroundings like when it lands the trees & bushes don't move & nothing on the ground is disturbed so while the Wyvern is a decent animated monster it looks nothing more than an animated monster that has little or no interaction with anything 'real' in any of it's scenes. Because the monster is a big flying reptile Dragon it's hard to believe that it could creep up on anyone without them noticing so some of the attack scenes are just poorly staged as this huge Dragon just appears out of nowhere, it's not like the survivors wouldn't see it coming literally a mile off, I mean what's in the sky to hide it? All anyone would have to do is keep an eye on the sky & you would know where it was. Or am I wrong? Am I missing something? Filmed in Vancouver in Canada it's well made for what it is, the CGI effects are better than expected but there are plenty of other much better films with good effects. The acting is average, I hear that the cast is quite good with some veteran actor's but I can't be bothered to look them up, all I will say is I didn't recognise anyone myself. Wyvern is your typical crap SyFy Channel creature feature that has decent CGI effects but is a total bore. I really can't think of a single reason why I would want to watch this again.

The residents of a small Alaskan town find themselves under attack by a flying reptile known in medieval mythology as a Wyvern. It has thawed from its ancient slumber by melting icecaps caused by global warming. Only we're in Alaska. Ice Caps aren't here. It's a trite, dumb movie that only a dolt could love. Flying monster is OK looking but the story lacks anything really interesting. Acting is mediocre at best and the directing is slow. And of course, they have to throw in a global warming angle. Can you be any more dumb?

RELEASED TO TV in early 2009, "Wyvern" is a story about an Alaskan hamlet attacked by some sort of dragon-like creature, recently awoken from its long frozen hibernation. It's directed by the great grade-B-monster-flick director Stephen R. Monroe who also did "Sasquatch Mountain", "Ogre", "It Waits" and the remake of "I Spit on Your Grave" (2010). What I liked: The story is taken seriously without being dead-serious. The cast is good and the characters seem real and three-dimensional. Erin Karpluk plays one of the main characters, Claire. She's also one of the most gorgeous, winsome females to walk the face of the earth. What a smokin' figure! The dragon isn't just causing havoc without rhyme or reason; it has a plan. The CGI creature is effective. The ending is an obvious homage to Spielberg's excellent 1971 TV flick "Duel". BOTTOM LINE: If you enjoy modern monster-in-the-woods flicks like "Goblin", "It Waits" and "Ogre" you'll likely appreciate "Wyvern", which is on par with "Goblin" but a bit better than the other two. THE FILM RUNS about 90 minutes and was filmed in Vancouver, BC (big surprise). GRADE: B

The dragon or dragons--don't understand their origin or if there's just one or many, nor do I care to much. I can't joke about the monster star who is the star of the film--indeed none of the characters take away from that flying evilly smart malignance. I don't remember better designed CGI; whatever amount of money used to make these things move and their blending realistically with the scenery was money well spent. I've seen the dragon breath on glass, swoops down, chomp ups multiple times; still not bored. MO Wyvern deserves the original film title. Dragons in plot nothing new but what makes me highly recommend this movie is the set design and cast types--and the inventive ways the beast offs people, and cars and most spectacularly (and tad of a spoiler) a helicopter. And of course can't resist films where folks look everyday see on street. Even the two beauties look normal--and appear to wear bare minimum make up. A bigger aspect that makes the film a breath of fresh air, no crappy human drama weighing it down, no stupid attempts employing logical science with fantasy. This setting could easily be an alien world.

For a movie presented on the Sci-Fi Channel, this was pretty solid entertainment. No secret that "Wyvern" is the dragon in the movie that starts its killing spree just minutes into the movie and doesn't let up till the end. I must say up front that the effects for the dragon were very decent and not at all like the old computer-game effects that have dragged many a Sci-Fi Channel flick down. That gives this movie a major boost, because if the bad guys/monsters are credible, then you have some drama. There is humor, action, and suspense here, with good acting, especially from Nick Chinlund, who is doing a rare good guy turn here. I can hardly look at the guy and not see Donald Pfaster from two episodes of "The X-Files" as an evil killer obsessed with Scully. And he does a good job here as a trucker with a past, doing odd jobs around the Alaska town that he's the relative newcomer in. Of course, he reveals that past in a nicely-acted scene with Erin Karpluk, who plays Claire, the owner of the local diner (who, by the way, is a total doll). All this during a lull in the dragon attacks of course. I love monster movies where everybody pitches in to defeat the evil, and this movie is no different. Pretty much everyone has a purpose, but not everyone makes it. Also kudos to the writers for keeping me guessing till the end about how in the world they were going to kill the dragon. More kudos for not having an extra dragon pop up or an egg hatch at the end. Dragon dies, people rejoice, credits roll. I enjoyed it and give it a 7 out of 10, as far as movies on Sci-Fi go. Watch this one the next time it's aired---you probably won't be disappointed.