Dragon fodder! (Reign Of Fire (DVD))

Member Name: Judgee

Product:	Reign Of Fire (DVD)
Date:	17/04/03 (95 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Dragon sequencies

Disadvantages: everything else

This film is absolutely dire, Quite how this made it to the cinema screens, I will never know? Perhaps it has a lot to do with the director, Rob Bowman. I have a lot of respect for this man, well at least I did. His television credits are long and impressive. Director of such great series as Start trek: the next generation, The X-files, Quantum Leap, Alien Nation and of course Baywatch (alright Baywatch was naff but worship by millions of horny teenaged boys across the world, you can hardly ignore it!) I guess this gave him the weight to bring such a travesty to the big screen. So why did I hate it so much? Read on?


~~The Story~~

Young Quinn visits his mother at her place of work. Being a construction engineer, his mother is involved in tunnelling under modern day London. Quite why she is doing this remains unclear. Suddenly the drilling team stumble across an underground cavern. Boys being boys, Quinn goes to investigate and is shocked to find a great big dragon staring down at him. As he and his mother try to escape in the open caged lift, the dragon attacks. Causing his mothers death and leaving him with a great fear of all things large and fire breathing.

The story then moves on twenty years. In this time the dragon has escaped into the modern world and bred like a rabbit. Thousands of fire breathing dragons now control the skies, causing death and destruction all around. Only a few people remain on the planet and Quinn is one of them. Leader of a small colony living in a castle, he prepares the young children of the group for a life of misery. Teaching them to run and hide every time they see a dragon.

They live this awful existence until one day a hero comes in the form of Denton Van San. Denton is an American soldier who, with the help of his troops, tanks and a helicopter, hunts down dragons with a vengeance. Denton has noticed that all the dragons that he has killed were female and has a theory that the dragon previo

us unleashed by Quinn and his mother all those years ago, is the only male in existence. Kill the only male and the dragons die out!

I will say no more on the plot, just in case someone out there is tempted to watch it! (Personally, I wouldn't bother!)


~~The Actors/performances~~

Christian Bale plays Quinn as an adult. It is no surprise that his performance is dull and uninspiring. The script is dire and full of holes. Even the greatest actors in the world would look bad working with this rubbish and he isn't one of the greatest actors in the first place!

Matthew McConaughey plays Denton Van San and is probably the most disappointing out of the lot. His performance is no worse than the rest of the cast, but I expected much more from him. He reminds me of a young Marlon Brando in both appearance and ability. He has been in a lot of films and often shone brightly. Playing Jake Tyler Brigance in the film A Time to Kill, particularly sticks in my mind. But in this film he is almost laughable as the over-the-top war veteran with a grudge against all things scaly. An actor of his calibre should have been able to stay well clear of piffle such as this, I just hope he is a bit more choosy in the future!

Polish born Izabella Scorupco plays Alex, helicopter pilot and love interest in this film. She is absolutely gorgeous and very easy on the eye. Unfortunately she is also wooden as a plank!

As for the rest of the cast, just a complete bunch of nobodies who will probably always remain so. Only the child actors showed any sign of life and they were in the background!


~~Special Effects~~

Well if nothing else, this is probably the only area in which this film actually does quite well. The dragon sequences are pretty flawless and believable. Buildings burn realistically and when the dragons fly about setting fire to all and sundry, it looks really good.


~~Overall thoughts~~



What a load of rubbish. The script is so bad that a five year old child could write one better. There are more holes in the plot than a packet of polo mints. For example, after twenty years of death and destruction, resources are supposedly scarce and yet Alex spends most of her time flying around in a helicopter. At the same time Van Sar and the rest of his troops drive around in tanks. Where the hell did all the fuel and spare parts come from? Van Sar and his cronies also fire their weapons like it's going out of fashion, so where did they get all their ammunition? Going back to Alex and her helicopter. How come the dragons seem to notice when someone steps out of the front gate of the castle and yet totally ignore a ruddy great helicopter for most of the film? Van Sar drives tanks. Big tanks and yet cannot drive down a road because it is blocked by cars. Have you seen how easily a tank can drive over a car? Quinns' dragon is the only male, so where did the first female come from? Oh I could go on and on...


This film is rubbish. Watch it for the special effects if you must or even to see how a film should not be made. They don't get much worse than this!


Running time: 101 minutes
Rated 12




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