Reign of Fire Review
by Bob Bloom (bobbloom AT iquest DOT net)July 11th, 2002
REIGN OF FIRE (2002) 1 1/2 stars out of 4. Starring Christian Bale, Matthew McConaughey, Izabella Scorupco, Gerard Butler, Scott James Moutter and David Kennedy. Screenplay by Gregg Chabot & Kevin Peterka and Matt Greenberg. Story by Chabot and Peterka. Directed by Rob Bowman. Rated PG-13.
Know what killed the dinosaurs? Sure, you do. A giant meteor supposedly struck the planet about 65 million years ago, and the debris blocked out the sun ...
Whoa! Not so fast. Don’t believe everything you read in textbooks. Here’s what really happened. Flying, fire-breathing dragons. They scourged the planet, laying waste to everything that lived then went into hibernation until the planet replenished itself.
Or so we are told in Reign of Fire, a cartoonish, futuristic, apocalyptic tale that’s part-Dragonslayer, part-Road Warrior.
Definitely in the guilty pleasure B-movie category, Reign of Fire is so incredibly inane that it is laughingly enjoyable. It is cinema-lite, stupid, sloppy and simple.
The year is 2020. Twenty years earlier an excavation under London unearthed and awoke the big, bull hibernating fire-snorter, and before you can say, Puff the Magic Dragon, the world is overrun by these flying beasties.
A montage comprised of old newsreel footage and mock-up news magazines articles describe the next 20 years in which most the planet is laid to waste trying to fight the flying marauders, who burn and eat anything in their path.
Mankind is reduced to a handful of isolated communities, we are told, who barely subside.
One such lair in rural England is led by Quinn (Christian Bale), the original survivor of the first dragon attack. It was his mom who uncovered the creature and was one its first victims.
But enter the cavalry, in the form of a U.S. Army Reserve contingent led by the super gung-ho Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey) who calls himself the “Dragonslayer” because he knows how to down the giants.
Quinn and Van Zan forge a reluctant alliance to rid the planet of the flying serpents and reclaim the Earth for mankind.
Of course the script, by Gregg Chabot, Kevin Peterka and Matt Greenberg, based on a story by Chabot and Peterka, gives them a hand by conveniently setting up a situation in which only one male dragon rules over a horde of lesser females. He flies over and fertilizes their eggs. Thus, if he dies, the species dies.
Never explained, of course, is how all the hatched eggs carry only females, nor how they spread globally from one male who rules from the ruins of London.
No matter, this movie relies on its visual thrills to carry you along. Logic went the way of the dodo.
Bale and McConaughey spend most of their time shouting at either each other or their subordinates. McConaughey trying to look tough, has shaved his head, has an unkempt beard and continually chews on a cigar stub in the corner of his mouth. His attempts at being a macho John Wayne type are ludicrous. He’s all ham and gestures, but Reign of Fire does not present any acting challenges, so why waste the effort.
The dragon effects are what propels Reign of Fire and they are decent, nothing spectacular. Reign of Fire is merely screen filler, an old-time Saturday matinee diversion that fails to ignite its scripted possibilities.
Bob Bloom is the film critic at the Journal and Courier in Lafayette, IN. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] or at [email protected]. Other reviews by Bloom can be found at www.jconline.com by clicking on golafayette.
Bloom's reviews also appear on the Web at the Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Bob+Bloom
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