Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

Attack of the Gryphon is just another very bad original movie from the Sci-Fi Channel. It stars Amber Benson of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Larry Drake of L.A. Law. Even though I can sometimes get down with some low budget sword and sorcery, this one was practically intolerable. This is pure MST3K material.

I actually liked the first 90 seconds of this movie. It featured two guys sword fighting while a crowd watched. The costumes looked good, the setting looked pretty good, and even the choreography was decent. They really did have a nice little duel going on. All was going great until the first line of dialogue was spoken, and then it all went downhill from there.

For a movie with four credited writers, you’d think the dialogue wouldn’t have been so lame! If someone had taken the time to speak the words aloud, they would have realized how ridiculous and ‘bad video game’ it would have sounded. Couple poor dialogue with mostly bad acting and you get a movie so awful it becomes worth watching just to make fun of. Back in high school, my friends and I used to make movies like this for fun.

The story is about this evil wizard (Drake) who summons forth a gryphon, which is a mythological creature that has an eagle’s head and wings, but the body of a lion. The wizard uses the gryphon to disrupt the local war between two rival groups, and his goal is to achieve immortality and rule the land. What’s the deal with fantasy movies where somebody wants to take over the planet? Anyway, a princess (Benson) from one side and a prince (Jonathan LaPaglia of The District) team up to take out the wizard and reunite the people. Yay!

Besides the poor dialogue and acting, what really kills this movie is the horrendous CGI used to show the gryphon. If you can’t use computer graphics to make a halfway decent looking monster, then don’t use it. At times, the gryphon is so low-tech that he looked like he flew out of the Money for Nothing music video. Other times, with long distance shots, he looks OK. Either the production ran out of money or some artist walked off the job, but either way the gryphon is so stupid looking that it was hard not to laugh.

I once had a conversation with a friend where we discussed how if Sci-Fi would quit making so many of these crap movies and instead use the money to make just one or two good ones, they might have the potential to gain credibility. As much as I love the fantasy and science fiction genres, there has always been a problem with junk like this tainting the respectability of the genre. That’s why people who are into fantasy and sci-fi are commonly looked upon as nerds because so much of the material is so stupid. Case in point: Attack of the Gryphon.

The only reason I rented this movie was because it starred Amber Benson and I wanted to support a former member of the Buffy clan. I know Hollywood is a tough business and I wish her all the best, but she should not have done this movie.


Recommended: No

Viewing Format: DVD