A Review by Forrest Humphrey
There aren't many monsters as instantly recognizable and popular as Dragons. And why not? They're big, they fly, they breath fire, sometimes they're as smart as people, live forever, use magic. There's no end to what a creative individual can do with Dragons. But even among Dragon flicks, this film remains quite unique, and stands out for a number of reasons. So for our “Forgotten Film Friday” I present 2002's “Reign of Fire”.
Set in the then-future year of 2020, our story follows Quinn (played by Christian Bale) as the leader of a survivor camp stationed in an old castle outside London. As a child, Quinn bore witness to the end of civilization when the railway company his mother worked for unearthed something quite unexpected when digging new tunnels: an enormous, hungry, angry dragon. That was only the first, as soon, millions swarmed the earth like a plague, burning everything away and humanity utterly failed in stopping them.
The lives of the humans left are shown to be grim, always keeping nervous eyes on the sky, prepared to run and hide at the sight of leathery scales or the rush of air from their flapping wings. While there are moments of levity, the film mostly plays its premise straight, and it works. There are a number of children in the castle, and everyone practices a nightly prayer about always being watchful and ready to find shelter, even in sleep “keep one eye on the sky”. Its quite sobering for a movie with dragons as its primary antagonists.
Their lives are interrupted by a squad of American soldiers led by Van Zan (Played by Matthew McConaughey), looking to rest at the castle on their way to London. What's in London? The bull dragon, the sole male who fertilizes all the eggs laid by the millions of female dragons, like fish. Quinn and Van Zan butt heads quite a bit as their priorities clash with each other, but their clashing turns into mutual respect in the finale.
What we are left with is a distinct blend of a dragon film and a post-apocalypse movie. In stark contrast to the classic dragons of movies like “Dragonslayer” where there was one uber-dragon, Reign of Fire's world has millions upon millions and there was a surprising effort to make them believable from a scientific perspective, such as their bat-like body structure and their fire breath being explained as a chemical reaction like the real-life bombardier beetle.
And of course, anyone who has seen the film will tell you, these dragons are amazing in terms of visual effects. Even now, seventeen years later, these CGI creatures stand as some of the best dragons ever put to screen thanks to the work put in by the animators. The film is mostly in shades of gray thanks to, you know, most of the world being burned of any life, but the smoky, burned out surroundings give a consistent atmosphere that remind you how pervasive the threat is, how desperate the situation is, and both the castle used for the bulk f the film and the finale in the burned out remnants of London are visually interesting locations to make up for the lack of color (as well as being a fun call-back to the medieval roots of classic dragon stories. How can a dragon movie NOT have a castle after all?)
The cast are all quite game too. Bale and McConaughey are also joined by Gerard Butler and Izabella Scorupco as Quinn's best friend Creedy and Van Zan's right hand woman Alex respectively. So as my friend and blog-runner Brooks put it “Batman and Leonidas are buddies and neither of them is the biggest badass in the film”. Everyone's putting in work here, and Director Rob Bowman noted in an interview that while everyone knew they were doing a B-movie and were having fun, they also wanted to give it their best shot, giving us both the then-groundbreaking effects work for the dragon and a solid cast of actors giving surprisingly strong performances for the material. And make no mistake it's still a B-movie, and its a lot of fun. Despite me going on abut how grim the film can be and the pains to make the dragons realistic, the film knows when to inject some cheese and some silliness to remind you that yes, they knew what kind of movie they were doing and they wanted to do it good without being up their own asses about it.
“Reign of Fire” is a favorite of mine and remains a cult classic thanks to its effects and unique genre blend. If you have any love for dragons and/or post-apocalypse films, do yourself a favor and check this out over a bowl of popcorn.
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