Subject: Review: Reign of Fire (2002)

From: Bob Bloom <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 03:45:35 -0000

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-masked] or at 
[email-masked]. 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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X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 737184
X-RT-TitleID: 1114678
X-RT-SourceID: 872
X-RT-AuthorID: 1363
X-RT-RatingText: 1.5/4