Review of Reign of Fire (2002) by Dawdlingpoet — 28 Nov 2021

This film is a mix of action, adventure and fantasy - probably primarily fantasy, genre wise and it features themes including survival, fighting and militia. It starts off resembling almost a family film, with a young boy striding along in a construction site but within a few minutes it quite clearly turns much more dark and bleak in tone and otherwise. The main character, Quinn, is played by Christian Bale, so in a way you could argue that was the first clue that it'd be a somewhat dark film, as Bale does tend to appear in rather sombre/dark films.

It has a somewhat medieval dystopian feel of sorts, which is a little bizarre given its a film set in the future but the outpost depicted has to rely on candlelight and the adults are shown (early on in the film) attempting to provide basic entertainment for the younger members, so it made me think of that. It has quite a chilling feel to it as the pace quickens, while we see that something is clearly not right and we're left to try and figure out whats going on, not long off the start of the film. I did think it had somewhat of a feel of a feature length TV show about it - I'm not sure what the budget was but it seemed mildly under-whelming somehow. It made me think of other fantasy based shows shown at the weekend, such as Robin Hood or The Three Musketeers. I felt the obviously dark lighting was frustrating, as I found myself struggling to entirely follow what was happening, with large jets of fire appearing in different places and people running, desperately attempting to get out of harms way, while violins etc. played furiously. I thought it made me feel slightly claustrophobic - its not necessarily a bad thing to convey the sense of fear and panic in characters depicted on screen but there does come a point in which its little other than frustrating, or mildly annoying, when you feel your guessing what things are where, where specific people are and so on.

Cast wise, as I say Christian Bale plays the main character, that of Quinn. He comes across as quite strong and ready to fight, a rebellious warrior type, which is the sort of role that he's known for I think. Meanwhile, Matthew McConaughey plays Denton Van Zan, one of the less-than-admired Americans. Other cast members include Gerard Butler as Creedy - a typically Scottish man, (not afraid to say how he feels - I quite liked him) and Izabella Scorupco as Alex Jensen.

There is the ocassional witty line present in the dialogue, although nothing especially laugh out loud funny but the ocassional amusing line, which surprised me as I didn't really expect to hear anything in the region of comedy in such an otherwise quite serious style of film (what can be more serious than a large number of fire breathing dragons terrorising earth?!).

Music wise, I felt this film was a bit cliched - its pretty much what you would expect from a TV show broadcast on Saturday (or maybe Sunday) evenings i.e. an unoriginal classical score, trying to add tension and make the viewer more concerned about what may be to happen but it didn't feel quite right to me. It felt a bit too forced somehow - I'm not sure I can explain how but it did.

Content wise, there is some moderately strong language used and it features some moments featuring topless men (although some may feel that to be a plus side - esp. if your a fan of Christian Bale!), there's moderate violence, including nothing particularly graphic but the threat of violence is relatively real and there are obviously numerous scenes with sudden fires appearing and people attempting to avoid a burning. There are one or two slightly intense fight scenes above this and of course younger viewers (young children) may find the CGI dragons themselves to be quite frightening but otherwise it didn't seem especially likely to offend. Due to this, it was given a 12 rating.

The CGI was alright but not as good as I've seen in other films. I did think the film was somewhat suspenseful, although I can't say I felt especially emotional, or otherwise greatly bothered, by any of the characters as such. It didn't hit the mark for me but I imagine that if your seriously keen on fantasy films and dragon based films then you may find it more suspenseful and perhaps a slightly more gripping watch than I felt it was. For me it was ok but not much more, hence my rating.

I don't think I'd recommend this film as such, as it didn't feel (to me) to be particularly impressive or memorable as such. I suppose im not the biggest fan of fantasy films but I do appreciate a well made film, I'd like to think regardless of the genre and I just felt this didn't quite make the mark. It isn't awful, it has some good qualities, such as its quite suspenseful and features some witty dialogue at times but it felt a bit too cliched for my personal liking and it certainly didn't seem memorable to me, hence why I'm not going to recommend it.