Fight Fire With Fire

The other night we sat down and watched the dragon film Reign of Fire starring Matthew McConaughey, Christian Bale and Izabella Scorupco. It was pretty enjoyable so I thought that I would write a short review of our impressions of this dragon movie from 2002.

First of all, why not take a look at the trailer:

They’re extremely intelligent. Highly evolved. And they don’t like sharing the planet.

Plot summary *Possible spoilers alert*

Quinn, a 12 year old boy living in London, joins his mother after school one day at her job as a construction engineer. Whilst he is with her, Quinn witnesses the awakening of a gigantic fire-breathing monster from its rest where it had been sleeping in the tunnels under the British metropolis for many eons. We jump forward twenty years and vast areas of planet Earth have been torched to unlivable conditions by the dragon and its offspring. Quinn now works as a ‘fire chief’ and he has found himself responsible for watching over a dwindling community of human survivors. His days are spent warding off the ferocious beasts and trying to keep safe the small group of men, women and children who somehow manage to eek out a life despite the constant danger. Exploding into their lives like a bomb comes hotshot American, Van Zan, and his squad of army personnel. Van Zan claims he can kills the beasts, and not only that, he believes he has a plan to save mankind and rid the world of the dragon terror forever.

Review of Reign of Fire *Possible spoilers alert*

I’m no movie reviewer so I won’t bore you with a long, tedious review here. I advise you to watch the film and see what you think for yourself! However, I will leave a few notes of my own here.

First and foremost, I love post-apocalyptic stories, so this movie appealed to me straight away. Often post-apocalyptic tales revolve around the consequences of nuclear war or a story of survivors in a world of zombies following a global outbreak of a virus or such like. Therefore, for me it was refreshing to encounter a film where the apocalypse was caused by something completely different, in this case, dragons!

I’m not a fan of Christian Bale as an actor and I didn’t think he was convincing in this film either. He always to be uninterested in the parts he plays and I never seem to find him act with enough emotion. On the contrary, Matthew McConaughey was great in this dragon movie. He bought a sense of excitement to the proceedings where Christian Bale didn’t. The directing was good and I thought the dialogue was okay. The special effects might seem a little weak by today’s standards, but for their time they were very good!

All-in-all, I enjoyed this dragon film and I think that the rating of 6.2 out of 10 on IMDB is very fair. It wasn’t perhaps as polished as it could have been, and at times it was a bit far-fetched, but it is a fantasy movie so I forgive those moments. With a different lead actor and more grittiness, I think this could have been a better film, but as dragon movies go, it’s one of the best!

Technical Information

  • Year of Release: 2002
  • Director: Rob Bowman
  • Rating: PG-13
  • Runtime: 1h 41min
  • Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1

Where to buy ‘Reign of Fire’

If you are in the UK, you can buy Reign of Fire on amazon.co.uk:

If you are in the United States you can purchase Reign of Fire on amazon.com

Reign of Fire DVD Cover