Originally Reviewed
Sunday March 26, 2006
Reign of Fire brings on a whole new type of disaster film; forget global warming and tornados how about some fire breathing dragons taking over the planet!?! It all begins in London, when a young boy named Quinn goes underground to visit his mother who is a construction engineer. He enters into a newly discovered cavern to find a dragon who has been hibernating for hundreds of years. The release of the dragon sets forth a sequence of events which leads to an almost total annihilation of the human race.
Now 18 years later Quinn (Christian Bale) is the leader a small group of survivors who have created for themselves a home in an old demolished castle, their main goal is to stay alive in hopes of living to see the day when the human race is able to recover. One day a company of American troops arrive, lead by an eccentric man named Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey), Zan proposes the two groups work together to fight back against the dragons. Quinn is against this idea, feeling Zan's recklessness would lead to more people dying. Van Zan on the other hand is willing for more to die if it leads to the destruction of the dragons. His theory is the only way to beat the dragons is to kill the one and only male, the largest and the strongest, the same dragon Quinn first discovered 18 years ago.
Reign of Fire is an entertaining film, seeing it when it was first released in theaters and thoroughly enjoyed it, watching it again now I recognize a few more familiar faces such as Christian Bale (Batman Begins) and Gerard Butler (Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life, Dear Frankie), whom at the time I had never heard of. All together, with Matthew McConaughey, they make up a very good cast of actors. The special effects are outstanding and the dragons very well crafted, 100% life like and very threatening. But my favorite scene in the film has to be when Quinn and his best friend are entertaining the children with the performance of the battle between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader from Star Wars, the children thought they were making it all up and the expressions on their faces and their reactions was hilarious!
In the end, Reign of Fire is a solid action film, with good acting, great special effects and a decent story. It only receives an average score from me because the overall plot is very simplistic and it's not a very engrossing story, eventually it all simply turns into a "lets kill the dragons" film. Still it's well worth a rental, providing for an enjoyable hour or so of fun and mindless entertainment.
7/10
ooooh, this is one more film which fanboys like to hate, but you and I agree on as being a good one, like THE MUMMY and VAN HELSING sagas :)
ReplyDeleteREIGN OF FIRE is one of the films I've watched at least ten times so far. Back in the day it was released it was extremely refreshing and original since we haven't seen many dragons in cinemas back in those days. I remember being super excited to see it before it premiered.
Although the plot could have been better at some points, it still is a great and entertaining film with stunning effects, sets, dragons, action scenes ... and the most amazing cast - I mean having Bale, Butler, McConaughey together in one place and add Isabela Scorupco there as well, it's a lovely mix :)
@Dezmond - Well I wouldn't go as far as lumping it with The Mummy and Van Helsing, I enjoyed those two a lot more. But it is a solid action film and aside from Dragonheart no other good live action Dragon films come to mind.
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