"OK, so we took a chance and rented this. This film had some promising parts and couple good laughs from the energetic kids, but many parts were just badly done and badly acted. The kids for the most part were ok, particularly the lead boy who I think was fun to watch. But some of the the adult actors...unbelievably emotionless and very difficult to watch. Roddy Piper was not bad, a little over the top sometimes, but he would have been a good addition to a talented cast...however, this was for the most part not a talented adult cast. The film started off going downhill with CG effects that made me shake my head (think Pete's Dragon from 1977). The plot was just plain difficult to follow. What really killed it for me was when totally unbelievable things happened, and the parents and other adults and even the "bully" kid were completely unfazed...like this stuff happens every day...totally emotionless.
All I can say is this had a couple decent parts but could have been much better with an understandable plot that made any kind of sense and some serious acting improvement. One Star!"
The Worthless Waist of Time of Billy Owens
okinawawriter123 | 07/16/2010
(1 out of 5 stars)
"Before I go in to details of this garbage, let me just say don't by the movie! I was lucky because I bought the movie for 5 bucks, instead of the outrages price it is being sold for here!
Billy Owens, is a cheap Harry Potter knockoff. The lead character, Billy Ownes(Harry Potter)finds a magic wand in a store shop owned by a wise wizard (Dumbledore) he and his friends, Mandy(Hermoine) and What's His Name (Ron), must go on some task to save their town.
The script seemed to be written by some third grader who just finished watching Harry Potter. The movie is hard to follow. At first Billy Owens seems to be the only child with magic abilities and then every one in the town has magic to.
The villian of the story seems to change every three minutes and the biggest threat of all is a vine.
The film had terrible effects, terrible acting, terrible script, terrible camera crew!
Bottom Line....the movie's GARBAGE!
Avoid at all cost!"
Zero stars
M. Raney | Texas | 05/31/2010
(1 out of 5 stars)
"Oh my gosh, I bought this from a movie rental store going out of business. the cuteness of the actor on the front lured me. (He looks like my cousin son) Anyway, this ishte worst movie I have ever seen. Bad acting, horrible storyline/plot, less than amateur special effects. All of this has been commented on, so I will touch on the bad editing.
An example-The kids steal the book from the library at night, are in school what we assume is the next day, are back at Billy's house doing homework in the evening, a TV news crew broadcast that the book had just been stolen at 7pm that night.
The story was nonexistent. Its like someone said "hey here's an idea-a viking, a dragon and a river, now ad-lib your dialogue.""
WOW was this film BAD
B. M. Block | Columbus, Ohio | 01/01/2010
(2 out of 5 stars)
"OK- I'm giving this two stars instead of one only because I applaud Mr. "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (who is an Associate Producer on this film) and the film makers for trying to make some kind of "family friendly entertainment"
The cover of the DVD seduced us to rent it, but the film is laugh-out-loud BAD throughout. The film was obviously a VERY, VERY LOW BUDGET attempt to capitalize on the popularity of Harry Potter, but without any of the charm, character development, dialogue, actors, or the special effects budget of the Potter films.
The children in the film are stiff and unnatural, and the adults are even MORE stiff and unnatural. The acting is just plain terrible, but who can help it with dialogue like this? Mr. Roddy Piper is actually the only one with any acting chops whatsoever in the film...if that tells you anything.
Even the kids (7 & 10) laughed out loud at the poor execution of parts of the film- it became fun to watch only for making fun of how poorly it was done.
The story itself actually seems rather original...if you can follow it! It's a convoluted and confusing mess about Viking runes and a river dragon and being born on November 11th. Some stand out dialogue includes:
"All I can tell you about the key is...it's the key."
"There is an air of promise in the air. Can you feel it?"
"
Is this a homemade movie?
C. S. Porter | Central Iowa | 10/15/2009
(1 out of 5 stars)
"This movie was good if it's a homemade movie. Not so good if it's an independent film. And down right horrible if it was professionally done! It looks like a movie a bunch of kids made, and young kids at that. I've seen teens do a much better job at homemade movies. The only funny part was the fat security gaurd getting stuck at the library, otherwise very, very boring. Our 9-year old fell asleep watching it. The older kids kept hoping it would get better. I'm doubting the sequel will be any better, but we can always hope so."