REIGN OF FIRE

A fierce warrior he may be, but let him be a silent one, please. Shhh... don't speak!

Could you imagine a species that has been sleeping for millions of years, that is suddenly let loose on the world? Recently, there have been films that have tried to do this with all the predictable offenders, like dinosaurs, but dragons are a little different. Ok, not really, but I'm giving the benefit of the doubt here.

This movie had real potential to be one of the summer blockbusters, but somehow it fell short. Let's start with the acting... Matthew McConaughey, although he may be easy on the eyes, chomped on a soggy, half smoked, cigar throughout most of the movie and couldn't have played a more clichéd, American-Rambo-type character if he tried. I thought this was a monster movie, not a comedy. Christian Bale adopted a really thick accent that often made it difficult to understand what he was yelling about and it seemed that his tongue got in the way of the words. His character was developed much better, which made him the only one with any depth. The rest of the cast was appropriately scared, angry or intense on cue. Izabella Scorupco's character started off really strong, but ultimately became the all-too-common damsel in distress.

Ok, now that I've stated my opinion, on to the general gist of the picture...

Present day: Young Quinn Abercromby visits his mother (Alice Krieg) on an underground dig in London. Unbeknownst to them, the digging crew has tapped the sleeping chamber of a dormant dragon. This is where all hell breaks loose.

Flash forward a good 10-15 years and the adult Quinn (Bale) has survived, at overwhelming odds, the domination of the world by the ever-multiplying dragon population. Billions have died, all cities have been destroyed, and, for all they know, Quinn's band of survivors are the only people left on earth. There has been no radio activity for a couple of years and they are doing their best to keep it together with limited resources and unrest within the group. Some want to move on with hopes of finding others and food. The problem is that there are dragons everywhere. Moving the group, comprised of a lot of children, would be an almost impossible undertaking. Staying and fighting from their medieval castle shelter would be the best option at this point.

Out of the blue, another band of survivors (Americans) show up at the castle. This group somehow has been able to cross the Atlantic IN A HELICOPTER to continue their fight. They are led by Rambo! ummm... I mean Denton Van Zan (McConaughey) who is tattooed, pumped up, well-oiled and wearing the American flag, proudly, on his chest. What could be more inspirational than that, I ask you? As it turns out, the Americans are a dragon-killing machine: they use skydivers as bait to distract the dragon and high tech gadgets to triangulate the position of the enemy. It seems that they have been able to figure out that of the millions of dragons that encompass the earth, there is only one male among them.

Although Quinn and Denton are at odds throughout the story, it is Quinn who is the only one who has seen the male and knows exactly where it is: the dig site where his mother accidentally set it loose. With the theory that if they destroy the male, the dragon population would eventually die out, they set off for London. Up until now, we've only seen a couple of dragons and no more than one at a time, but when they get to London, they are everywhere. Seeing this, the audience can now get the sense that all cities are like this—completely overrun. At this point, Van Zan seems to become more funny than anything else. A fierce warrior he may be, but let him be a silent one, please. Shhh... don't speak!

The special effects on this movie are good, but somewhat inconsistent. In showing the same creature, in two different scenes, they seemed to have scaled it down in size to fit the streets of London, when before it was large enough to dwarf the castle that it was attacking. In addition to that, I would've liked to have seen more dragons. Who wouldn't, really, but the single ominous shot of London was what I thought would be the reality of the film. Alas, it was not.

All in all, Reign on Fire was a pretty good monster movie with all the required fire-breathin', man-eatin' creatures and human conflicts. I would say that if you are going to see it, see it on the big screen (matinee of course) for the full experience.