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Trailers for Reign of Fire boast its Time of the Dragons in 2084 A.D., alas the film begins in 2008 when the first dragon is discovered and settles in 2020 at the height of their reign. Seems the world’s governments were a little hasty when they decided to launch nuclear weapons in an effort to destroy the evil entities that were laying waste to cities and trying to conquer. (Not all that far removed from current history.) The geniuses in office end up making a cozy little nesting ground for the winged ones who strive off the ash of the ruins. Whether they eat it, bathe in it or enjoy its decorative patterns is never quite explained. Then again, neither is the glorious sunless gardens or how a shoddy broken-down castle still has one of the nicest kitchens this side of Good Housekeeping. But who cares, we want DRAGONS!!!

In true post-apocalyptic Mad Max fashion, a group of survivors have gathered not to mount an offensive but to protect what they have left. Christian Bale (American Psycho) plays Quinn, the leader of one of London’s surviving castle domains, who came eye-to-eye with the original beast that killed his mother. He now spends his time preparing those who remain for the future, if there may even be one. That’s all about to change when Denton Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey) arrives with his group of Americans. Armed to the teeth with guns, tanks and a helicopter (yet barely using any of it), Van Zan is ready to lead everyone to victory against the objections of the more safety-conscious Quinn.

Movies like this eventually come down to two things – attacks and exposition – and if the attacks are hot, the talking is usually not and vice versa. Reign of Fire mostly plays it straight, which is a welcome encouragement when originality and idealic notions are at the heart of a sci-fi adventure, but can also be a distraction turning a goofy premise into an unintentional laughfest. The setup is encouraging enough to at least keep us on the “what if” road of man’s struggle vs. a flock of mythological firebreathers, but “what if” the movie constantly promises us the ultimate showdown and then never delivers.

There’s a handful of action sequences to be sure, but never once is the audience pleasured with the heroes having to ward off more than a single dragon. Every mano-a-beast confrontation is just that – mano-a-beast – never manos-a-beasts. For a group of creatures intellectual enough to hunt in armies to destroy cities, you wouldn’t think they’d be lazy enough to just send one at a time to wipe out the final few.

And why is it that every time a great premise of insurmountable odds is bestowed onto its heroes, the filmmakers always find a way to simplify it the lowest common denominator. This is a cheap storytelling tactic that has been employed all throughout fiction from Robert Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters to Aliens to Outbreak. The odds are a million-to-one so let’s reduce it to the good guys finding a single source to destroy and claim victory. In the case of Reign of Fire, it’s the daddy dragon fertilizing the eggs or the way I see it, the audience with a bunch of dragonshit.

Most of the action is sloppily directed by TV’s Rob Bowman (The X-Files – series and movie). In what should have been a showstopper, Van Zan and the Americans stage a dragon attack involving motorcycles, their chopper and paratroopers. These jumpers have a life expectancy of 17 seconds once in flight, which leads one to ask the question, how many of these guys have been lost to come up with such a clocked figure? From what I gathered in this sequence, the ground forces must triangulate a 3-D tracking system while the Rangers jump in hopes of two of them snagging the dragon’s wings with separate nets as a cyclist becomes bait for the creature to fall into the crosshairs of Van Zan’s big gun. Individual elements of this prove to be quite entertaining, but Bowman botches the overall feeling of it to maximize its excitement. He seems more intent on finding a place for self-homages like black helicopters and little boys exploring dark caves (I understand the Vatican has already denounced this movie) then pumping up the adrenaline.

Where those juices could use an injection, the testesterone level is boiling over thanks to the oft-shirtless Bale and the outrageously entertaining performance by McConaughey. Over-the-top goofy machismo hasn’t been this gloriously displayed since Kurt Russell brought Snake Plissken to the screen in 1981’s Escape from New York. Shaved bald and full of heroic gravelly-voiced speeches, McConaughey goes to town with this role creating both a character and a characterization that we can root for. (Just wait for his perfect delivery about his signature flask.) Bale, so Oscar-worthy for American Psycho, makes a fine leading man bringing some nice human touches that may have fallen by the wayside with your typical A-list heroes. Make no mistake about it, this is most certainly a man’s world with no place for a model-turned-actress (Izabella Scorupco) whose only defining trait outside of her pretty face (why is she so clean?) is that she gets really scared once.

Reign of Fire is serviceable enough entertainment on a rainy day of channel surfing, but even with the testesterone drip of sweat and dirt running throughout it lacks the balls-out quality that should have turned this into the kind of classic that guys would love when they were just boys. We love giant marauding creatures from the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park to Larry Cohen’s cult winged serpent “Q” to even the amazing CGI creation of Dragonheart with the Scottish accent and it’s a shame that this movie doesn’t take the opportuntity to truly assault our senses.

The movie world has become more sensitive to the needs of parents and it’s a shame that kids can’t get a good scare anymore without a PG-13 rating being slapped in their face. How telling is it that the all-time classic dragon feature (for my money), 1981’s Dragonslayer, is far more exciting, scarier and violent (all with a PG rating) than Reign of Fire where the fears of being burnt and eaten are subdued when the victims all but disappear into CGI before they or the audience can be scared. Maybe the ads showing us the year of 2084 suggest a time when the better story will be told. For better or worse, as one character poignantly puts it in the film, “here’s to evolution.”

link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=5985&reviewer=198
originally posted: 07/12/02 11:11:22
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