A Trickster Review : Reign of Fire

[The Trickster]

Firstly, I should say that I absolute love dragons. I’ve always read, written, and dreamed about dragons. I even have one tattooed on my back! Fantastically strong and intelligent creatures that have a grace and dominance unsurpassed. But there are no real dragons. Until Reign of Fire, that is.

Storyline:
When a young boy wakes a sleeping dragon from it’s slumber, he unknowingly causes the near-destruction of humankind, as the dragons burn the world into a blackened shell, with only a few groups of survivors remaining.
Quinn (Christian Bale) was that young boy, and has grown to be a leader of a small group of survivors. They have the will only to survive, and see any fightback against the dragons, as futile.
Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey) is a completely insane American man, who has set out on a mission to rid the Earth of dragons, using extreme and dangerous measures for the cause.
When these two men’s lives cross, we witness a struggle between the two men, which ends with them joining forces.

The Good:
I like the way they mixed dragons with technology, as I think the whole “there’s a dragon outside the castle Sire, shall I protect the Princess?” scenario is old and fairytale like.
Obviously the special effects play an important role in this film, and thankfully they deliver where it counts. The dragons look absolutely fantastic, and you get to see plenty of them right from the start. There are quite a few scenes in the movie that had my jaw sitting firmly on the floor as far as the effects go. The only problem that I could see, was that sometimes the proportions were all wrong (ie. One moment the dragon looks gigantic, and then, in the very next scene, looks half the size!) But mostly, it’s all good.
Now for the surprising part. The acting in this film is of a high quality. A couple of A class actors (Bale and McConaughey) help in this department, and considering the quality of some of the dialogue (poor), all involved did their best to be believable.
Izabella Scorupco = very yummy indeed!

The Bad: (slight spoiler in the following paragraph)
I get the feeling that this movie is very much incomplete. At the start, we skip from one dragon being awakened in London to thousands of dragons ruling the planet about 20 years later in the blink of an eye, with no real explanation. How does one male dragon reproduce I wonder. Maybe I wasn’t listening in reproduction classes at school! In the end, we skip from one male dragon being killed, to no dragons being seen for six months. Where did they all go? There are many, many questions like this that the movie doesn’t even attempt to answer, which leaves the viewer thinking about what could have been had a real writer been involved.
At one stage Quinn finds an egg, which is subsequently never discussed or seen again. It seems the editors had a field day with Reign of Fire!

Conclusion:
Anyone expecting Oscar material from Reign of Fire, needs to have their head checked. It’s a no-brainer, special-effects orientated, actionfest. Keeping that in mind, I think it partly succeeds. Unfortunately, it feels incomplete and full of holes. At least it wasn’t trying to be funny like Eight Legged Freaks!

Oh what could have been!

6.5 out of 10

[Gazza]

Originally posted by The Trickster: The Bad: (slight spoiler in the following paragraph) I get the feeling that this movie is very much incomplete. At the start, we skip from one dragon being awakened in London to thousands of dragons ruling the planet about 20 years later in the blink of an eye, with no real explanation. How does one male dragon reproduce I wonder. Maybe I wasn’t listening in reproduction classes at school! In the end, we skip from one male dragon being killed, to no dragons being seen for six months. Where did they all go? There are many, many questions like this that the movie doesn’t even attempt to answer, which leaves the viewer thinking about what could have been had a real writer been involved. At one stage Quinn finds an egg, which is subsequently never discussed or seen again. It seems the editors had a field day with Reign of Fire!

They say in the film they also have no idea how they went from one to millions in so short a time. As far as all of them dissappearing, with the only male killed they had no way to reproduce and they were begining to starve anyway. And the egg that Quinn pulled from the dead dragon would have been unfertilised and therefore wouldn't have hatched. But I agree the film seems somewhat incomplete but was however enjoyable.

[The Trickster]

Originally posted by Gazza: They say in the film they also have no idea how they went from one to millions in so short a time. As far as all of them dissappearing, with the only male killed they had no way to reproduce and they were begining to starve anyway. And the egg that Quinn pulled from the dead dragon would have been unfertilised and therefore wouldn't have hatched. But I agree the film seems somewhat incomplete but was however enjoyable.

I understand the notion that all the dragons just starve and die, with no way of reproducing. But when the dragons were hungry before, they fed on humans. Now, with the male dead, do they somehow not like to eat humans anymore and leave them in peace. Somehow, I think if they were intelligent, they would totally waste the remaining humans for no other purpose than to eat.
But anyway, let's not get caught up in the holes and just enjoy the movie for what it is.

[Larry_OHF]

<font color=skyblue>Great review! You covered it very well.</font>

[Jorath Calar]

I agree with you Trickster, it could have been so much better...

And am I mistaken (been awhile since I saw it) but didn't they say the Dragons fed on Ash... so with the whole world in ashes... why were they starving. It's so full of stupid plotholes that I would give it 5/10 (1 for the horrible Star wars reference joke... [img]smile.gif[/img] )

[Luvian]

The Bad: (slight spoiler in the following paragraph) I get the feeling that this movie is very much incomplete. At the start, we skip from one dragon being awakened in London to thousands of dragons ruling the planet about 20 years later in the blink of an eye, with no real explanation. How does one male dragon reproduce I wonder. Maybe I wasn’t listening in reproduction classes at school! In the end, we skip from one male dragon being killed, to no dragons being seen for six months. Where did they all go? There are many, many questions like this that the movie doesn’t even attempt to answer, which leaves the viewer thinking about what could have been had a real writer been involved. At one stage Quinn finds an egg, which is subsequently never discussed or seen again. It seems the editors had a field day with Reign of Fire!

They reproduced like fish. There was only one male and all the others where females. The females would lay eggs, and the male would fly around and "activate" them.

[The Trickster]

Originally posted by Luvian: They reproduced like fish. There was only one male and all the others where females. The females would lay eggs, and the male would fly around and "activate" them.

I do understand the concept Luvian, I just don't think it was well represented onscreen. We started with one male dragon, where did the first female one come from?

Further to this, when the "one" male fertilises all the eggs that have been laid by the female dragons that appeared from nowhere, why can't more male dragons come out of those eggs?

As I was saying, major holes!