Reign of Fire

Release Date: July 12, 2002

Watch Date: April 11, 2024

“Matthew McConaughey and Christian Bale star in an explosive action-packed adventure with bone-charring special effects that will have you glued to your seat! When workers in a London tunneling project awaken an unearthly fire-breathing beast from centuries of slumber, all hell breaks loose. Twelve-year-old Quinn (Bale) sees his mother, one of the workers, die trying to escape this new terror. Twenty years later as a “fire chief,” he tries to keep a group of refugees alive with fierce dragons dominating the air, burning the land and feeding on the ash. Unexpectedly, Van Zan (McConaughey), a hotshot American militia leader, shows up with a ragtag group of slayers on a perilous crusade to hunt down and destroy the beasts. Tempers flare when there is a struggle for leadership — until both men realize only one species is getting out of this alive.”

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   If I had to think of one word to describe this movie it would be this: grey.

   This movie is just very grey.

   And I get the point. I get the atmosphere. Everything’s burnt. Everything’s ash. Everything would be different shades of grey and black. But it doesn’t make for a interesting backdrop, it doesn’t give the eye a lot to look at. Especially when all the people are also dressed in grey.

   If everything’s grey, it kind of makes everything boring, and it makes even dragons boring. And the dragons are actually few and far between, and until the last one, they’re not even very detailed. You don’t see them clearly, which does add to the terror and the insecurity of the human situation. But you can’t really advertise “special effects” when you barely see the things.

   Bob fell asleep three times during this movie, and only saluted America one time, which – in a film with very macho Americans doing macho American things – is pretty rare for him. And that should tell you something about the entertainment factor of this film. Now, does he state categorically that America saved Britain once more. Yes. But, that’s just who he is. A patriot through and through.

   I like the science of the dragons, and how they’re interwoven into world history, and not just this random thing that happens. Connected to the dinosaurs and the ice ages. I like the explanation of the way they breathe fire. Hell, I even like the explanation for the way they reproduce. I will say though, it’s weird. They work the way a lot of animals do, with one large creature controlling a hive. But usually it’s a female. In this one, it’s a male. They explain that the dragons mate like fish, and if they take out the male, they will essentially have wiped out the population. But, that doesn’t make sense. Was there only one male dragon…ever? If, like other reptiles, the dragons can control the gender of their eggs, would they not then reproduce a new male? Are they hoping that the dragons just haven’t mated in this cycle?

   It just…if you’re going to try and make mythical creatures biologically sound, you have to make it so that I don’t have a ton of follow up questions afterwards in order to make it biologically sound. I don’t want to have to do the work for you.

   This isn’t a movie I’ll put on again, and I probably won’t convince Bob to do so either, but if you like apocalyptic movies, if you like sci-fi and people struggling to survive, this could be your cup of tea? And if your favorite color is grey, then boy are you gonna be happy.