Typically, before seeing a movie, I have certain expectations about it. Sometimes I'm surprised and the movie turns out to be better or worse than I expected. Prior to seeing Reign of Fire my expectations were that the dragons looked great, but the plot looked kind of cheesy. It turns out that in this case, my expectations were dead right.
The movie begins in London, England with a young boy exploring an underground worksite where his mother works. A cavern is unearthed where a dragon lies sleeping. When he wakes up he rises to the surface and begins destroying and propagating with equal speed. Soon most of the Earth is destroyed; burnt by dragon fire. Mankind is reduced to pockets of civilization where they hide from the dragons and try to eke out their existence.
One of these groups of survivors is led by Quinn (Christian Bale), the young boy who first discovered the dragon. He is in charge of a motley group of people holed up in an old stone castle. Their one hope is that the Dragons will begin to die out now that the planet is reduced to a cinder and food has become so scarce.
These first 30 minutes of the movie with the introduction of the Dragons and the main characters in the castle, when it shows how they live and survive is the best and most interesting of the movie. An alternate world is created and the filmmakers are successful at drawing you into it.
It is only with the appearance of Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey), an American Marine who has flown to England because somehow he discovered that out of all the millions of Dragons in the world, there is only one male and the male lives in London, that the movie goes officially over-the-top.
Van Zan claims to be a 'dragon-slayer'. He imparts the wisdom that during the hour of twilight when the light is dim, Dragons can't see very well and are easier to kill. This important piece of information is imparted with such gravity and wisdom that you think it must be very important. Except that it isn't. None of the attacks against the dragons to come have anything to do with the time of day. And this is just the first of the many plot-holes and inconsistencies of which the rest of the movie is full.
The Dragons, we are told at the beginning of the movie, are undefeatable. They even survived a nuclear bombardment. However, once Van Zan shows up, we learn that they can be killed by a mere javelin or a very tiny amount of explosives packed on the tip of an arrow. If only someone had figured this out right away, the Earth need not have been destroyed! Also we are told that Dragons eat ash. This is why they are burning everything. They burn a building or a field and then feast upon the ashes. Yet in other scenes we see them eating people and even each other.
The movie climaxes with the final attack against the male dragon in London. Three humans armed with bows and arrows hope to do what the entire population of the planet with all its military might couldn't do; end the dragon menace. Puh-lease!!!
However, there are a couple of scenes that if you've ever been fascinated by Dragons, make this movie worth seeing. At one point, a column of soldiers is approaching London and out of the dark, an enormous Dragon flies. He swoops over the soldiers, holds his position and blasts them with his fire-breath. It is the visualization of many a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. And this scene is topped when the Dragon settles atop a flaming castle, and drapes its wings down over it. Visually these scenes are breathtaking. Too bad there aren't enough of them.
The post-apocalyptic world has always been a popular science-fiction sub-genre. They range from the good (think Mad Max) to the truly awful (think The Postman). Reign of Fire falls somewhere in between.
