Reign of Fire (2002)

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nTitle: Reign of Fire (2002)

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nDirector: David Bowman

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nCast: Matthew McConaughey, Christian Bale, Gerard Butler, IzabellanScorupco

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nReview:

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nDragon films are a rare bunch, and most of the time they arennot taken very seriously. The big problem with dragon films is that same asnwerewolf movies, for some reason they are not very popular with the masses. It’snonly when these films are prepackaged as family friendly fare that the make anynbank, for example Rob Cohen’s Dragonheart (1996), a family friendly dragon filmnif there ever was any that went on to make a hefty intake at the box office. Takingnin consideration how few good dragon movies get made, when a big budget dragonnmovie comes along, I always raise my hopes up, excited at the prospectnof seeing these mythical creatures come to life on the silver screen.

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nThe last time that a dragon film truly impressed me was withnMatthew Robin’s Dragonslayer (1981). To date, and in my humble opinion, that isnthe best dragon film ever made. That film presented us with not only an awesomenlooking dragon, but also a very believable depiction of the Dark Ages. And again,nit was a flop at the box office, which does not make it a bad film, it onlynaffirms the fact that dragons aren’t all that popular with audiences. Othernfilms have come close to being as good, but they’ve never surpassed thenawesomeness that is ‘Vermithrax Pejorative’. When Reign of Fire came along, Inwas expecting something awesome. Why? Well, the creative team behind it was angood one, the cast was top notch…the posters promised chaos in the London skies. Plus,nadvancements in special effects technology had come to so far. I was expectingnto feel the heat from the dragons breath, alas, this didn’t happen. Why didnReign of Fire disappoint?

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nIn Reign of Fire, the world has been ravaged by firenbreathing dragons. They’ve burned the earth to a crisp; you see in this film, thesenmonsters live off of ashes! The governments of the world retaliated by tryingnto wipe these creatures out with nuclear weapons, but that plan failed. Thesencreatures are impervious to even that! Unfortunately, the battle against the dragonsnhas transformed the entire world into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Humannsurvivors are scarce. The film focuses on a group of survivors who live in annold castle in England.nThey strive for normalcy in the midst of the ashes. The leader of this group ofnpeople is Quinn, a man who tries desperately to give them peace and hope. Onenday, from out of the blue, a group of American dragon slayers led by a manncalled ‘Van Zan’, show up at the castle door steps. They claim to know the waynto kill dragons; but are they to be trusted?   

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nThe film does present us with an interesting premise, thatnof dragons taking over the world. Dragons have burned the earth to a crisp! Somentime has elapsed since the dragons first appeared and humanity has now all butnfaded. This has made the creatures extremely hungry, which makes them all thenmore dangerous; in spite of this the film fails to make the dragons feel like anreal threat, in fact, save for the finale, the dragons aren’t really seen allnthat much. What Dragonslayer did so right was transmit the idea that this evilncreature was alive, the dragon never talked (they sometimes do in these movies)nbut you could almost hear the thoughts stirring in its head. Put plainly, thendragon in Dragonslayer had a freaking personality. In contrast, the dragons innReign of Fire are lifeless, almost non existent. They aren’t characters. To benhonest, these dragons felt like CGI background to me; as if the director was afraid or embarassed to be making a monster movie. In his own words Bowman says on the dvd that he couldnt believe he was here, making a monster movie. A B-movie. So he set out to make a b-movie with a-list production values.  Unfortunately, he decided not to focus on the creatures we are so eager to see; which in part is whatnbrings the film down for me and one of the reasons why this film is a notchnbelow Dragonslayer. The dragons simply didn’t feel tangible or organic, this mynfriends is a problem I have with many of today’s effects heavy films and it’snsomething I try and get adjusted to, but hell, its kind of hard to connect withnsomething that is so obviously not there.

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nI don’t want to turn this review into another rant about thenpitfalls of CGI, but I miss those days when I felt like the monsters wherenthere. Still, I’m not saying that Reign of Fire is a complete throw away of anfilm because it isn’t. The cast is solid, we get to see Gerard Butler back innthe days when his career was just getting started; McConaughey when his careernstill mattered and a pre Dark Knight Christian Bale. Oddly enough; it’s notnChristian Bale who shines on this one but Matthew McConaughey with his ‘Van Zan’ncharacter. Aside from having a cool ass name, his character’s just a kick assnmother. He’s intimidating, he chomps on cigars, he’s bald and he’s oh sonAmerican.  Van Zan and his group of dragonnslayers suddenly invade the film. They present us with an interesting contrastnto the colony Christian Bale is the leader of. You see, Quinn’s followers hidenfrom the dragons and are waiting for them to die off on their own while Van Zannand his team take dragons head on. Van Zan has found a way to kill dragons! AndnI’m watching the film and thinking how this film would have been so much morenexciting had it been told from Van Zan’s point of view. The story of Van Zannand his team of dragon slayers seemed more interesting to me then the one aboutnQuinn running an orphanage. Van Zan’s team has this technique where they trynand catch dragons with nets, by flying extreme hights on helicopter and thennjumping off the choppers with parachutes and these giant nets. These scenesnactually make up the most thrilling scenes on the film. Unfortunately, the filmndoesn’t focus so much on this new technique for killing dragons and you’re kindnof left with the desire to see more of Van Zan and his ”angels”.

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nThe dragons themselves leave a lot to be desired, you kindnof want to see more of them. The film does this really lazy thing where it kindnof shows us how the apocalypse began via a series of news paper articles andnnews footage. This is not what we want to see. What we want to see are dragonsndestroying Londonnwith the fire! We want to see dragons melting everything away and turning thenworld into ashes, but no, I guess the films budget wasn’t enough to show usnthis. A wasted opportunity if you ask me, it’s either they had no budget fornit, or lazy filmmaking, you be the judge. Ultimately, for me, the film is verynuneven. It had a lot of potential but failed to live up to it. It got somethingsnright and others completely wrong. This kind of film I judge on a differentnlevel then say 2019: After the Fall of New York (1983) because on those cheapnItalian films it’s the other way around. They have no money, but the crazynideas come out of the woodwork! But when a film like Reign of Fire comes along,nwith a decent budget, good actors and a competent director, yet still managesnto disappoint, well, I just can’t forgive it. Still, Reign of Fire is watchable;nit’s well shot, and looks appropriately bleak. Unfortunately, it might not livenup to your expectations of what a good dragon film should be.  

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nRating: 3 1/2 out of 5  

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