Review of Reign of Fire (2002) by Kai82 — 27 Sep 2020

It is a movie that I want to praise and scold at the same time. It has unique ideas, a good cast of characters and an interesting fresh setting. But on the negative side some parts of the story are unbelievable or outright ridiculous, you will often feel that they could have gotten more out of the setting / concept and it is strangely fast forgotten.

For the setting / story: During an underground construction in London workers awaken a slumbering dragon from hibernation. This leads to the awakening of countless other dragons that over the years destroyed the civilization and driven humans nearly to extinction.

It is the story of Quinn who was a child when the events started and is now a leader of a group of humans who hide in an old castle and a group of soldiers lead by Denton van Zen who still tries to exterminate the dragons.

Rest would be spoilers so I will end it here. The setting is refreshing and it is a post-apocalyptic Mad Max style setting with dragons. Just awesome. Then there are the characters. Quinn and Denton are the main characters and do a good job.

They are polar opposites and have a good chemistry. The rest of the cast does also a good job. The CGI are excellent here. The dragons look great and menacing. Also the sets and visual give a great representation of a post apocalyptic scenario.

You get the feeling of a grim and scary world where (nearly) all hope is lost. So far so good but there are negative points. Like I said the story is unbelievable even for a fantasy setting. Dragons are strong, menacing and scary but are no match for modern weapons.

In Fables they have a similar discussion and came to the conclusion that no dragon is even a challenge to a fighter jet and only as an unrelated to this movie side-note that a man armed with a machine gun outperforms a wizard with twenty years of training (A sharpshooter can also eliminate any wizards with ease).

Can you imagine even ten thousands or hundred thousand of dragons standing a chance against the combined military forces of the world? If mankind perfected anything in their history it is the art of war and killing.

I also did not even point out nuclear, chemical or biological weapons that will diffidently be used. Yes there would be human causalities probably in the millions but even when the nations will not work together they will exterminate the dragons fast.

Maybe with some left alive in unpopulated areas and zoos. Then there is the observation that is plot relevant and I cant spoil. The chance that this got overlooked is smaller than a snowballs chance in hell.

Also I think stories placed at an earlier time of events could be far superior. For example during the beginning where the existence of dragons would be denied being a pipe dreams, when the battle against dragons started or the final stages of the war.

I think I have said enough. Overall this movie has refreshing ideas and is worth watching. However it is fast forgotten as I have not heard anyone in many years heard talking or mentioning this movie.

With a bit of more creative writing and minor improvements this could easily become a classic.