Review by Calvin Trager

July 9, 2002

It is 2020, and the world lies devastated amidst fields of smoldering ash. Dragons, the terrible beasts of legend, have become altogether too real. Moreover, their strength, destructiveness, and rapaciousness are equaled only by their prolificacy; in a span of years, they have grown so numerous as to have routed civilization and scattered humanity to the corners of the earth, where humankind are reduced to eking out survival in small settlements, constantly fearful of the threat of flaming violence descending from the sky.

The leader of one such pocket of survival is Quinn (Christian Bale), the sole survivor of the holocaust that marked the beginning of the terror which now envelops the world; the first sighting of a species of ferocious, flying, fire-spewing dragons. When a group of military men under the command of self-proclaimed "dragonslayer" Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey) appears, there is hope that the hunters may themselves be hunted.

Reign of Fire is the sort of action-packed, special-effects extravaganza that epitomizes the summer blockbuster. Armies of grizzled, war-battered men in tanks and helicopters against flocks (gaggles? swarms?) of dragons; the fantasy equivalent of Independence Day. So why, oh why, does this play more like a scaly, flaming, Travolta-free Battlefield Earth?

Implicit in the contract between moviegoer and moviemaker during the summer is that the audience attempts to suspend disbelief while the studio produces whiz-bang stunning effects designed to elicit oos and ahs during the brief window of logic deferral. Reign of Fire at least does a passable job on that front, with swooping, lunging dragons that are at least as pretty as the previous landmark entries in this genre, the classic Dragonslayer and the more recent Dragonheart.

Where it fails is its almost fundamentalist devotion to the action movie formula, with nary a deviation from the long list of clichés that form the genre's backbone. Personality-free characters designed to rack up a body count? Check. Defiant dissenters determined to follow their own selfish urges rather than adhere to the doctrine of safety, thereby jeopardizing themselves? Check. Ridiculous plan against all odds where all hope rests squarely on the shoulders of a tiny few? Check. Hot chick (Izabella Scorupco)? Check. This movie is so by-the-book that it could be the police chief in a wacky buddy-cop movie.

(Perhaps the above is too harsh. One staple of the genre, the "avenge me" death sequence, is notably absent, but perhaps that's simply because those who die do so instantly by being completely incinerated, swallowed whole, or both)

And ultimately, its utter predictability saps the film of the one thing that it professes to produce, which is tension. It's rarely there when there are dragons onscreen, and even worse, it's rarely there in the moments right before dragons appear onscreen. It's one thing to know that something is going to happen...eventually. Here, the audience can prognosticate with reasonable accuracy not only when something will happen, but what as well. It's enough to put Miss Cleo to shame.

Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey are both buff, and sport scraggly facial hairstyles. But enough about the acting.

Anticipation can often spell the difference between a thoroughly enjoyable moviegoing experience and an utter waste of time. Anticipation, both in the film's ability to deliver on the promises of its trailer, and within the film itself, of the payoff moments which culminate in surprise, revelation, or spectacular stunt work. Reign of Fire manages to distinguish itself in neither way. At least, perhaps, the future it depicts is a hopeful one; the children living in the world of that movie will not have to endure films like this.