Subject: Review: Reign of Fire (2002)

From: Sean O'Connell <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 03:56:09 -0000

REIGN OF FIRE

A film review by Sean O’Connell

Copyright 2002 filmcritic.com

Pity the dragon.  When not building lame adventures around the mythical beasts
(Dungeons & Dragons), filmmakers have saddled the poor creatures with the smooth
baritone stylings of Sean Connery (Dragonheart).  Reign of Fire, director Rob
Bowman’s grim vision of a ravaged future, doesn’t completely reverse the
negative trend, but it does borrow enough recognizable elements of contradictory
genres to fashion a passable monster mash.

In the not-too-distant future, London drillers uncover a dragon’s lair far below
the surface, awakening a horde of slumbering beasts and triggering a mass
invasion.  The creatures pillage our planet, destroying every major city from
Paris to New York.  We’re not shown the attacks, but rather a montage of
headlines from newspapers.

By the year 2020, very little of what we consider the Earth remains.  Quinn
(Christian Bale), who leads a community in hiding outside the boundaries of
London, has convinced his followers they can outlast the dragons, since fighting
them has so far proved futile.  Television producer Mark Burnett might call it
Survivor to the Nth degree, but it’s a grisly existence, with the fear of attack
ever present.

Alternate options arise in the form of a band of American marauders, who arrive
at Quinn’s castle seeking refuge.  Their leader, Van Zant (Matthew McConaughey),
subscribes to a suicidal theory that dragons can be hunted instead of avoided. 
He sports a tooth the size of his thumb from a dragon he felled in Kansas,
proving the beasts can be bested.  Van Zant’s armed for a war, but Quinn is less
than enthused to use his clan for dragon feed.

McConaughey appears to have the most fun with his part.  Chomping an
extinguished cigar and bulging his eyeballs out beyond his bald cranium, he
stares right through the fire-breathers, focusing instead on the greener
pastures they’re keeping him from.  If there were a serious market for
post-apocalyptic dragonslaying pictures, McConaughey could carve himself a new
career path.  Bale, on the other hand, barely registers.  Hidden behind a tuft
of hair and a five-month-old scruff of beard, his face lacks fire and passion. 
McConaughey’s eyes dance wildly, while Bale’s choose to sit this one out.

Perhaps he sensed how artificially macho the screenplay had become.  The
dialogue couldn’t be worse, requiring characters to spout, “We can do this easy,
or we can do this real easy.”  Reign is about as manly as films get nowadays
without taking place in prison.  When Quinn and Van Zant fail to compromise on
the direction of the community, they brawl.  It solves little, but ratchets up
the already high testosterone level.

Van Zant’s plan for capturing dragons provides the film with its coolest
sequence.  Skydivers dubbed “archangels” plummet from a helicopter and battle
the fire-breathers in mid-air.  The creative idea juices the proceedings and
rivals any other generic attack scenes in the film.

Still, Reign remains a dragon movie where the dragons fail to impress.  Bowman
initially hides his creations, obscuring them by clouds or plumes of smoke.  But
the effect never generates the desired suspense a la Jaws, instead feeling like
a budget-preserving device.  It’s not until the sole male dragon begins wreaking
havoc that this adventure heats up.  This creature shows its scaly face about an
hour into the film, and you won’t miss too much if you choose to wander in at
this point.

Set designer Simon Wakefield deserves credit for his desolate landscapes, even
if the bulk of them have been set on fire.  The rolling green fields of Ireland
stand in as the scorched earth outside London for most of the exteriors.  One
colleague asked why the fields were so fresh if the dragons were supposed to
have scorched everything.  I couldn’t answer him, as I was too busy trying to
noodle through why dragons hunted people at all, since we’re told they feed on
ash.  Unanswered questions like these prevent me from quite recommending Reign
of Fire.  It’s a lot of smoke, but too few mirrors.

RATING:  **1/2

[* = lowest rating / ***** = highest rating]

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Director: Rob Bowman

Producer: Richard Zanuck, Lili Fini Zanuck, Roger Birnbaum, Gary Barber,
Jonathan Glickman

Writer: Gregg Chabot, Kevin Peterka, Matt Greenberg

Starring: Christian Bale, Matthew McConaughey, Izabella Scorupco, Gerard Butler,
Alexander Siddig 

http://bventertainment.go.com/movies/reignoffire/index.html

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X-Language: en
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X-RT-RatingText: 2.5/5