Where do I begin... from the 8-10 star reviews written in chinglish, you can guess who is up-voting this movie. Don't believe them. This is such a generic fantasy movie, it hurts. Also, it steals - blatantly - from other movies, games, books. In many ways, it is like a lot of Chinese knockoff toys and action figures - it looks, at first glance, like a quality product, but quickly falls apart under scrutiny.
The story could not be more convoluted if it tried - that is unless this is a sequel to a movie that never came out? We are told, in a drawn flashback of the heroics of Generic McHeroguy, who saved the (creepily underage-looking) elf princess from a dragon, and yet now travels back to a human city to be a blacksmith. They keep in contact via magically sent arrow-mail. He has a dwarf smith mentor who invented the steampunk hoverboard (see Treasure Planet), and his greatest personality trait are his giant eyebrows. They are also joined by two disgustingly cute fluffy sphere-shaped dog-creatures that sadly, are in the whole movie to be annoying (see Minions.) McHeroGuy is also capable of the Fus Ro Dah dragon-shout, we never learn how. (see Skyrim). They are finally joined by a burly big barbarian on a steampunk flying ship (see Miyazaki movies) who barely contributes anything to the plot.
In the meantime, the mother (sister?) of the princess, who has ridiculously long giant elf ears (see Warcraft) is getting ready for a wedding. However, her evil dark elf sister (see D&D and myriad other sources) uses some magic dark crystal to summon the fallen spirits of dead elves to distrupt the ceremony. Who is? Why does she hate her sister? What's the deal with a whole city of dead elves just a few kilometers away from the elf kingdom lying there unburied? Again, never explained. So our hero arrives to stop the attack on the wedding. Did I say stop? I mean, stand around and think hard while elves are massacred left and right. Get ready for this - as if the heroes thought this was an anime, they never try to shoot the obviously attacking villain first, they stand and raise questions at her even while she is merrily blasting away at them with magic.
In the fight McHeroboy wounds Ms Darkelf with an arrow, who returns it with interest. This infects him with darkness that sometimes lets her control him... how, why? Again, never explained. So Ms Darkelf McHips is apparently after a green magic crystal that she expected her sister would have on her, but which was not there... so she kidnaps her on a flying rock ship. Get ready for many, many pointless scenes of Ms Darkelf torturing her sister for the location of the crystal, deciding to kill her, then not doing it, then letting her escape easily and then recapturing her, and generally doing everything WRONG in the Evil Overlord list in not letting your captives escape easily.
McHeroboy, Eyebrows the Dwarf, Generic Barbarian and Loli Elf Princess then form a Fellowship of the Something (see LOTR) to save the princess. All the while, the snotty elves (see also LOTR/the Hobbit) insist they are better at this, and as expected, fail terribly, getting murdered by the hundred, because they somehow expected arrows, no matter how magical, to be effective against non-corporeal undead. Barbarian dude saves the king/father/whoever and a few survivors on his ship, while McHeroguy easily finds the (older) Princess but is somehow blackmailed into getting the crystal for Ms Darkelf instead. Then shenanigans happen and our hero is taken over totally by evil, yet he retains enough self restraint to break his arrow before shooting Loli Elf Princess. Unfortunately for him, she did not return the favor and shot him point blank in the chest. But of course, despite her father's warning that she could die, she uses the green crystal to revive McHeroboy easily because true love conquers all...
So final battle - the villain easily defeats everyone, until Deus Ex Green Tentacles appear and tie her up, because apparently the older Elf Princess can easily do that with the green crystal. Why did she not do this from the start, who knows. Ms Darkelf then merges with the dark crystal and turns into a zerg-dragon-elf hybrid (see Queen of Blades, Starcraft), as usual with the trope, losing her speech ability in the process. McHeroboy then seemingly betrays Loli Princess and gives the villain the crystal, only to Fus Ro Dah her into a volcano. She survives this however because... she can turn to smoke?... and grabs both crystals and McHeroBoy. She is stupid enough to not drop him into the volcano right away though, and he triggers the crystal, and both fall into the volcano that sprouts green leaves, makes all the undead spirits depart to elf heaven (?) and then OF COURSE McHeroboy is rebuilt by the crystal while the elves wonder what the hell was the point of all this. Nothing was gained, they just turned a volcano into a tree, everyone who died is still dead, and Ms Darkelf I guess died too (of course the crystal would only bring back McHeroBoy). We end with a forced extra romance between Generic Barbarian and Tomboy Shorthaired Elf Archer who I swear appeared from out of nowhere with no introduction in the last 20 minutes of the movie.
So overall, the movie is a terribly generic good vs. evil story you have seen a hundred times, stealing designs and plot elements from much better movies and games. It is also creepy, because while McHeroBoy looks 20-something, the elf princess love interest looks SO underage, it is really uncomfortable to watch their "romance".At any rate, do not bother with this unless like me, you feel it is your duty to check out every animated movie ever.
The story could not be more convoluted if it tried - that is unless this is a sequel to a movie that never came out? We are told, in a drawn flashback of the heroics of Generic McHeroguy, who saved the (creepily underage-looking) elf princess from a dragon, and yet now travels back to a human city to be a blacksmith. They keep in contact via magically sent arrow-mail. He has a dwarf smith mentor who invented the steampunk hoverboard (see Treasure Planet), and his greatest personality trait are his giant eyebrows. They are also joined by two disgustingly cute fluffy sphere-shaped dog-creatures that sadly, are in the whole movie to be annoying (see Minions.) McHeroGuy is also capable of the Fus Ro Dah dragon-shout, we never learn how. (see Skyrim). They are finally joined by a burly big barbarian on a steampunk flying ship (see Miyazaki movies) who barely contributes anything to the plot.
In the meantime, the mother (sister?) of the princess, who has ridiculously long giant elf ears (see Warcraft) is getting ready for a wedding. However, her evil dark elf sister (see D&D and myriad other sources) uses some magic dark crystal to summon the fallen spirits of dead elves to distrupt the ceremony. Who is? Why does she hate her sister? What's the deal with a whole city of dead elves just a few kilometers away from the elf kingdom lying there unburied? Again, never explained. So our hero arrives to stop the attack on the wedding. Did I say stop? I mean, stand around and think hard while elves are massacred left and right. Get ready for this - as if the heroes thought this was an anime, they never try to shoot the obviously attacking villain first, they stand and raise questions at her even while she is merrily blasting away at them with magic.
In the fight McHeroboy wounds Ms Darkelf with an arrow, who returns it with interest. This infects him with darkness that sometimes lets her control him... how, why? Again, never explained. So Ms Darkelf McHips is apparently after a green magic crystal that she expected her sister would have on her, but which was not there... so she kidnaps her on a flying rock ship. Get ready for many, many pointless scenes of Ms Darkelf torturing her sister for the location of the crystal, deciding to kill her, then not doing it, then letting her escape easily and then recapturing her, and generally doing everything WRONG in the Evil Overlord list in not letting your captives escape easily.
McHeroboy, Eyebrows the Dwarf, Generic Barbarian and Loli Elf Princess then form a Fellowship of the Something (see LOTR) to save the princess. All the while, the snotty elves (see also LOTR/the Hobbit) insist they are better at this, and as expected, fail terribly, getting murdered by the hundred, because they somehow expected arrows, no matter how magical, to be effective against non-corporeal undead. Barbarian dude saves the king/father/whoever and a few survivors on his ship, while McHeroguy easily finds the (older) Princess but is somehow blackmailed into getting the crystal for Ms Darkelf instead. Then shenanigans happen and our hero is taken over totally by evil, yet he retains enough self restraint to break his arrow before shooting Loli Elf Princess. Unfortunately for him, she did not return the favor and shot him point blank in the chest. But of course, despite her father's warning that she could die, she uses the green crystal to revive McHeroboy easily because true love conquers all...
So final battle - the villain easily defeats everyone, until Deus Ex Green Tentacles appear and tie her up, because apparently the older Elf Princess can easily do that with the green crystal. Why did she not do this from the start, who knows. Ms Darkelf then merges with the dark crystal and turns into a zerg-dragon-elf hybrid (see Queen of Blades, Starcraft), as usual with the trope, losing her speech ability in the process. McHeroboy then seemingly betrays Loli Princess and gives the villain the crystal, only to Fus Ro Dah her into a volcano. She survives this however because... she can turn to smoke?... and grabs both crystals and McHeroBoy. She is stupid enough to not drop him into the volcano right away though, and he triggers the crystal, and both fall into the volcano that sprouts green leaves, makes all the undead spirits depart to elf heaven (?) and then OF COURSE McHeroboy is rebuilt by the crystal while the elves wonder what the hell was the point of all this. Nothing was gained, they just turned a volcano into a tree, everyone who died is still dead, and Ms Darkelf I guess died too (of course the crystal would only bring back McHeroBoy). We end with a forced extra romance between Generic Barbarian and Tomboy Shorthaired Elf Archer who I swear appeared from out of nowhere with no introduction in the last 20 minutes of the movie.
So overall, the movie is a terribly generic good vs. evil story you have seen a hundred times, stealing designs and plot elements from much better movies and games. It is also creepy, because while McHeroBoy looks 20-something, the elf princess love interest looks SO underage, it is really uncomfortable to watch their "romance".At any rate, do not bother with this unless like me, you feel it is your duty to check out every animated movie ever.