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Reign of Fire review
:. Director: Rob Bowman
:. Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Christian Bale
:. Running Time: 1:40
:. Year: 2002
:. Country: USA
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With its dragons, post-apocalyptic setting, limited budget and overacting from one of the lead actors, Reign of Fire is nothing less than a B-movie disguised as a big production.
In the near future, civilization has almost completely been swept away by a horde of dragons awaked by a construction site in London's underground. Christian Bale is Quinn, the head of a group of reclusive survivors who live in an English castle at the top of a mountain. The unexpected arrival of Denton Van Zan 'Dragon Slayer' (Matthew McConaughey) and his brigade of dragons hunters will sow disorder in the small community and attract the wrath of the male dragon, whose elimination would ensure the end of the race.
Reign of Fire is a flat and not very credible film whose action scenes are rare and not very impressive. Except for a few exceptions, the dragons in particular, the whole thing looks fake. Combined with a script that doesn't embarrass itself with either logic or realism, it sometimes gives the impression of being in the middle of a Christopher Lambert film. The fault falls partly on the production whose thin budget is not able to satisfy the special effects needs of such a film. Director Rob Bowman (X-Files) thus has to move to plan B to compensate; one will notice how world destruction is shown through the yellowed pages of a magazine, rather than through the showing off of special effects à la Independence Day.
Matthew McConaughey shows the limits of his talent. His overacting is almost intolerable, especially knowing that as a Texan he should not have problems playing a basic native from Kentucky. He offers us a caricature of the tattooed, bald, cigar-smoking American with a big mouth, without ever being convincing.
The film makes fun of American "savers of the world" who destroy everything (an antithesis of Independence Day) and the hero of the day is English. But the irony ends here. In the Mankind vs. Monsters genre, we are far from the second degree of Paul Verhoven's underestimated Starship Troopers, which attacked capitalist and belligerent cultures as well as the stupefying effect of television on the masses.
Christian Bale (what the hell is he doing here?) at least saves the day and Reign of Fire can be watched with certain amusement, like a typically kitsch small B-movie belonging to the post-apocalyptic genre.
Fred Thom
 Movie Reviews: American Films
Reviews 2012 - present
Reviews 1998 - 2012
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