Review of Reign of Fire (2002) by Jonna S — 12 Dec 2010

The beginning of Reign of Fire tries to position the film as a bleakly apocalyptic tale of a crumbling society trying to ward off the scourge of dragons that have infested the entirety of the planet, driving mankind underground in a last-ditch effort to stay alive. Later, it brings in an over-acting Matthew McConaughey, playing a weird balding and musclebound American fighter, giving the movie an opportunity to switch gears and become wild and campy. Unfortunately, the film doesn't fully embrace either of these genres and ends up feeling useless.

Don't get me wrong, the idea is stated almost perpetually that this is an apocalyptic wasteland that our heroes are living in. But the idea is stated, rather than evoked. We see them living in crumbling caves and castles, they talk about their troubles, but do we really believe it? When Van Zan (McConaughey) shows up and casually throws an apple to one of the townspeople, it's clear what idea the filmmakers are trying to convey here: food is scarce, but Van Zan is powerful and able to procure food easily. But we aren't totally sold on this idea - although there's a rush for tomatoes early in the film, the idea that food is so limited that the mere sight of an apple will bring tears of joy to the eyes of the citizenry is not adequately communicated.

Part of the reason that the terror of the situation doesn't come across is because it's all so silly. I've never thought of dragons as being so unrealistic and nonsensical until watching this film, which is shocking given that it needs to sell you on the reality of the dragons before it can do anything else. The creatures erupt from a chamber in the London underground and conquer the world in just a few years. They are alleged to subsist on ash itself, hence their fire-breathing: they can literally turn just about anything into a source of food. Dragons are implicated in the extinction of the dinosaurs and in the generation of the last Ice Age (there was so much ash it blocked out the sun!). And, come on, they're poorly computer-animated monsters that inexplicably attack the humans with almost no strategy whatsoever and vary in size in each shot. They're just hard to believe in.

Which is why the movie would have benefited from playing up the wackiness of Van Zan. As soon as he appeared, I said aloud, "I'm okay with where this is going." Unfortunately, where the movie was going at that point was not where I was hoping. He's given this role as a bad-ass dragon-slayer, but again never really does anything to earn this role. He's just introduced to us this way - the issue is not open for discussion. Where there was the chance for the actor to play an eccentric, loose cannon type character who puts himself in harm's way and comes away unscathed, Van Zan in actuality is much more reserved and boring. There are moments where he successfully talks the talk, but he time and again fails to walk the walk.

So the story is silly, the acting not up to par - so what? This is an action movie, after all, and should be able to excuse itself by having thrilling scenes of explosions and dragon-chases and helicopter fights and so on and so forth. But again, the answer is no. You can see how the filmmakers intended scenes to be action-packed. One part that involves several skydivers swooping down through the atmosphere in order to wrap one of the lizards up in a large net is, theoretically, exciting. But in reality, there's not much to it - and when one of these undefined secondary characters faces his ultimate demise, it's hard to muster the urge to care at all.

What I'm getting at, then, is that Reign of Fire has all of the pieces in place to make a fantastic action flick with a tinge of despair. It doesn't manage that, though. It's not just the dark color palette that makes the film feel so lifeless. This is a movie that takes Christian Bale, Gerard Butler, and a creepy awesome Matthew McConaughey and does almost nothing with them. On the whole, the movie isn't totally awful - although the dragons are silly, it doesn't reach into patent absurdity and never follows through with any particularly hilarious dialogue. Instead, it's bad for much of the same reasons that Waterworld or Ishtar were: because there was every indication that it could have been good, but it wasted everything it had going in its favor.