Don't Believe the Hype

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Unfortunately, the good people at Syfy seem to have thought it does.While "Pegasus Vs. Chimera" is not the absolute worst of the Syfy library, it still fares extremely bad on pretty much all areas. The writing is bad and the acting is either over the top or emotionless (mostly the latter), so be prepared for a lot of cringe-worthy lines. The story is nothing special; there's a couple of bad guys who basically want to conquer the world. It's up to a blacksmith and a princess to stop them, and eventually there are a Chimera and a Pegasus fighting on both respective sides.At a lot of points a badly executed shaky cam technique is used. On top of that there are numerous, and may I add pointless, establishing shots that might give you motion sickness. Also, be prepared for a lot, and I mean a lot of unnecessary and abrupt cuts. Some of the scenery looks okay, however the bad guys do seem to like to visit the same beach a couple of times, which is also the same beach where the father of the hero was murdered years before. What a coincidence, huh?As might be expected of a Syfy movie, it contains a lot of bad CGI and special effects. The Chimera isn't well animated itself, but any scene in which someone fights him looks simply horrendous - that is as far as you can even see any of it, since there are so many cuts, even during the most important scenes. The way they tried to make an ordinary horse look like a Pegasus is possibly the worst aspect of this movie. As the title of this review says, footage of the horse is fast-forwarded to make it look like it has "extraordinary powers".One thing I did like about this movie, is that in one scene near the end of the movie, everyone is involved in a battle, while the horse quietly stands behind them, grazing. Hilarious.

Before this current digital age came to being the only way to film something was to actually spend some film on it. You know, the light- sensitive tape, exposed image by image, and then edited and cut with scissors and a carpet knife. If you wanted special effects, now taken for granted, it was arduous work. And all this cost money. The more film you spent shooting, the less you had budget left to work with.Now with everything being digital, shooting film doesn't have to cost anything after the initial purchase of the equipment. For some (I'm looking at you, SyFy) it seems to work as an excuse to churn out intolerable amounts of garbage. What used to be a waste of perfectly fine film and thus money nowadays amounts only to wasted hard drive space.This assumption could not be further from the truth. A film like Pegasus Vs. Chimera proves that there still are cases were no excuses are good enough. Here's a spiteful little take on the movie in question:Knowing the location of the rec-button and having the skill to apply enough pressure on it to make the camera record does NOT mean any commendable camera work is taking place. - Reading through the lines given to you while wearing a costume given to you does NOT mean any acting is taking place. - Making the background music louder and shaking the camera does NOT equal exciting action, no matter what they say in the Michael Bay Film SchoolI had a few more points written down but I think all of us get the picture by now.Sincerely, if you (SyFy) want to make a movie, understand this: no cgi, no fantastic setting, nor sword-fighting make compelling film. What this purest cross-breed of art and entertainment business needs to tick either one of its' parents' boxes is sincerity, some spirit, some feel, enthusiasm and a hint of vision. I may have forgotten to list some here, but what all of them have in common is that none of them can be bought, so budget restraints are no excuse.Pegasus Vs. Chimera has nothing going for it. I wish I could have some of that healing Pegasus blood, so I could wash all those responsible for this flick clean.Yet, I forgive you. It was I who chose to waste my time watching this steaming pile of you-know-what. Now I write this as a warning to any potential viewer before I willingly push this film out of my brain and forget.

Right, well there are worse SyFy Channel movies out there, and "Pegasus vs Chimera" is a close runner up. I enjoy fantasy movies and movies that deal with mythology, but this movie was just not really worth the effort.The story is about King Orthos (played by Carlo Rota) who wants to unite all seven realms into one nation with him as self-proclaimed emperor, and he lays waste to all in his path to oppose him and do not kneel before his might. Belleros (played by Sebastian Roché) who saw his father killed by King Orthos's men as a child is drawn into the conflict as an adult when princess Philony (played by Nazneen Contractor) shows up at his blacksmith store. But King Orthos have had his warlock Actae (played by James Kidnie) summon forth a chimera from Hades to track down and kill the last survivors that stand against him. And in order to best this demonic creature, Belleros and Philony gets help by a pegasus that is summoned to their aid by the witch Mayda (played by Rae Dawn Chong).The storyline and concept idea is in itself good enough and had potential. However, the movie just failed to deliver given its low production value, questionable CGI effects, and an overwhelming lack of convincing the audience that this is taking place in a fantasy setting.It should be said that the chimera was really nicely animated and looked rather cool. Thumbs up for this, because it really made the movie worth watching for this creature alone. The chimera looked realistic and moved about in a realistic way. Plus the details on it was quite cool, and it made for a pretty mean movie creature.But on the opposite hand, then the pegasus was really badly animated about 90% of the time you saw it. You never saw its wings disappear or appear, as this creature oddly enough could manage to make them go away when on the ground. And for some strange reason when airborne, the pegasus suddenly had armor and padding on it, but this magically disappeared together with the wings while on the ground. And pay close attention to the two scenes where the pegasus takes flight with Bellerus and Philony on it the first time, and again when it lands. By all that is unholy, that was some of the worst CGI animation I had ever seen.The acting in the movie was half-hearted and wooden at best. You never really bought into the characters, because they were portrayed in a sense that you made think that the actors themselves didn't buy into this movie.Speaking of half-hearted things, then the very first fight with two of King Orthos men - where Actae kills Bellerus's father - has got to be one of the worst sword battle scenes in the history of filmmaking. It was so wooden and badly choreographed that it was literally painful to witness.Princess Philony said in the movie, something about being able to lay a hail of arrows with her bow, but pay attention to how awkwardly she is holding the bow when firing it. It just makes you laugh."Pegasus vs Chimera" is in the lower end of the budget and entertainment-wise scale as far as fantasy movies go. If you watch this movie, do it for the chimera, because everything else was not really worth mentioning.

I originally only watched the last hour of this movie and glad that was all. This film lacked many necessary features in order to make it any type of real monster conflict movie. There were also numerous details that were missing or conflicted. A Pegasus is supposed to have wings and this only showed a white horse - boo hiss. A Chimera, although various depictions exist, is mainly a multi-headed beast which this was not. Towards the end where the Chimera and the Pegasus were battling, the movie showed a wound to the left side of the Pegasus and then shortly afterwards, the wound was on the right. Get serious, what kind of amateur would allow that! Also the camera man was so shaky at numerous points, I almost got seasick. Overall this was a lackluster attempt at a mythological conflict and wasn't worth the time to even view it.