Former soldier John Norton buys a ranch in the middle of nowhere (shot in Utah) and is surprised to find that his new neighbors are an elf princess and an army of Orcs chasing her. He happens to live next to a gate to another world and is destined to become guardian of the gate. Not an easy task, as evil creatures are coming through every day. Since the Orcs do not know guns, though, they think Norton is a sorcerer with magic weapons, but when he defends the princess, the Orcs summon a powerful ally to strike back: a fire-breathing dragon...

Despite the low budget, simple countryside setting and unknown actors, this was surprisingly good fun. The script has a great sense of humor (for example when Katie gets a gun to fight the Orcs because they wrecked her car),nobody takes it too seriously, and the overall feeling is like watching an 1980s trash classic rather than a new digital production. Nothing wrong with that!

John Norton (Rusty Joiner) is not named John Carter because that would be too obvious. He buys an isolated farm and is an ex-soldier. The farm is located near a cave that is a portal to "The Nine Worlds." He has reluctantly obtained the position of "The Sentinel" a guardian of the portal between worlds. He is aided by a blind Native American.

He is also tasked in saving the Elf Princess (Masiela Lusha) from an acting career and the hordes of Orcs who desire to capture her for sacrifice, a sacrifice that would open the portals and allow the Orcs to conquer other worlds with their bows and swords. Seriously. Oh yes they also have one Nazgul.

The Orcs looked and grunted convincingly. The fire was all CG, apparently fire insurance is hard to come by. The storyline, as you can tell, wasn't great and at one point I had wished they had copied "John Carter" more, however the lack of a budget prevent exotic scenery . The production starts out as if it was going to be a decent film. But then suddenly everything takes place down on the farm. The idea of getting real help to combat an army of Orcs seems alien to John Norton, who would rather fight them alone save for the occasional person who drops by.

This film is in no way connected to LOTR except for the fact it borrows species from it.

A desperation rental.

Parental Guide: No f-bombs, sex, or nudity. Filmed in Salt Lake City.

"Orc Wars" (aka "Dragonfyre") was like watching a recording of a LARP event. And personally I am not one to enjoy the whole LARP scene, and I surely wasn't impressed by this movie.

The orcs, well they looked like something that was copied and pasted right out of something from the Tolkien universe. So whether or not that was good, well that is debatable. Sure, the costumes and armors were great, but it was just lacking originality, because it had all been seen in the "Lord of the Rings" movies. But they get an effort for trying and for putting this much effort into the costumes.

For the story, well just don't get your hopes up here, because the storyline was just downright embarrassing to witness. It was as stupid as it was uninspiring.

The acting was fair enough, just don't expect anything groundbreaking or overly innovative here.

As much as I enjoy sword and sorcery fantasy, then "Orc Wars" was just bad entertaining and a waste of time. And truth be told, then I actually fell asleep during this and had to get up and turn it off to find something else to catch my interest and attention. I got no idea how it ended, because I gave up about half way into the movie or so, and even there having missed out on a lot of it from falling asleep...