| London, 2008. A dragon is unleashed during excavation work for the Tube. Soon the whole world has been over-run by the fire-breathing menaces, which it turns out went into hibernation millions of years ago after they wiped out the dinosaurs. My expectations were high for Reign of Fire, with the impressive posters showing lots of dragons over a burning London, and lots of helicopter gunships engaging them. Unfortunately the advertising campaign proved somewhat misleading, the action takes place some years later, with the dragons dominant and humans living in small communities in the countryside. Quinn (Christian Bale) leads a community in Northumberland. It's even grimmer up North in the future; the community is starving and rebellious, and under constant threat of attack. Into this bleak arena arrive a bunch of American soldiers led by the psychotic Van Zan (Matthew McConaughay) and including GoldenEye's Izablle Scorupco. The Yanks are dragon-slayers and have a risky plan for ridding the world of the fire-breathers for good. Despite the initial disappointment of the dragon invasion being portrayed by a voice-over and some newspaper headlines, rather than the spectacular CGI battlefield that we all paid to see, there are some great moments in Reign of Fire. Particularly inspired is the skydiving scene, and a touching scene where Quinn and his sidekick Gerard Butler (Dracula 2000) act out the 'I am Your Father' scene from Star Wars for the kids. Christian Bale is well-cast, and McConaughay hams up his role impressively. He's every leader of a small ragtag bunch of post-apocalyptic survivors' nightmare. He's very gung-ho and over-the-top, but fortunately he is tempered by the more rational Quinn, rather than showing him up. The charging in, all guns blazing, approach isn't glorified as usual. Not the movie it should have been, but interesting nonetheless. 6/10. |
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| REIGN OF FIRE Director: Rob Bowman Producers: Richard D. Zanuck, Lili Fini Zanuck, Roger Birnbaum, Gary Barber & Jonathan Glickman Screenplay: Gregg Chabot, Kevin Peterka & Matt Greenberg UK Release Date: 23/08/2002 Certificate: 12 Official Website |
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