Basically a quest film, this story is written by director John Lyde and was adapted into a screenplay by David and Shylah Addante. The theme is straight forward: a group of orphans, who are not living under the best of circumstances, set out to find the magic and restore Christmas.
There are several subplots along the way, including the attack of dragons and raiders and, of course, the romantic side story. It has most of the pre-requisites for this type of tale: elves, goblins, dark mysterious places, and vulnerable peasants.
The mostly-young cast is well balanced and the scenery very Middle Earth. In fact there are echoes of Lord of the Rings throughout the characters, but without Tolkien’s well-drawn characterisations.
Acting-wise there are no standouts and the motivation is never clearly explored. The children are trying to save Christmas but none of them are able to remember it and there are no real explanations of the way they live or who rules them, and Christianity doesn’t get a mention. Don’t look too close – the children I watched this with did not care about any of the back story; in fact the smaller ones lost interest very quickly, but the eight year old seemed to really enjoy it.
The film has Jake Stormoen as Airk, the son of Father Christmas, in an interesting twist, with Bailee Michelle Johnson as Ayden. The leaders of the group of orphans are girls and Melanie Stone (Saerwen) and Eve Mauro (Aesa) make them believable. The main enemy is played by Heather Beers as Sister Lenora who is taking the children, mostly girls, away but the reasoning is never explained.
This film is a bit of fun to watch with children, but the plot has too many holes to stand serious scrutiny. None of the characters are particularly memorable and the setting is like so many others that nothing spectacular stands out.
I did like the dragon though.
Reviewed by Fran Edwards
Twitter: @Franeds
Rating out of 10: 6
The Christmas Dragon will be released on DVD on 18 November 2015.
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