Reign of Fire

Reviewed by:
Eric Alt

Never mind the brain-battering dialogue or the plot holes big enough to be seen from space, Reign of Fire is a post-Apocalyptic dragon movie that scores major style points with us for cool set design and generally flawless special effects. Mad Max-worthy vehicles, castle strongholds, and winged, fire-breathing lizards? If they had managed to work in an alien invasion and superhero or two, they might possibly have had the perfect summer movie.

When a young English boy unwittingly awakens a dragon that’s been napping in the London Underground for a few hundred years (courtesy of the world’s most lax construction worker: “Oy, kid. I just found a tunnel that could possibly lead straight to the earth’s molten core—why don’t you ’op in there and ’ave a look?”), he sets in motion events that lead to dragon repopulation and nuclear holocaust. Years later, the boy is now a shirtless man (Christian Bale) trying to survive constant dragon attacks and the arrival of an obnoxious American soldier (Matthew McConaughey) and his army of rag-tag dragon slayers (including the world’s hottest grizzled helicopter pilot played by Izabella Scorupco). McConaughey chews more scenery than the monsters with his cigar-chomping warrior, adopting an “I’m either very buff or have a hernia” strut and talking like a Hillbilly fortune cookie. Luckily, nothing here is taken seriously and the action is so over-the-top that Reign of Fire ends up being cheeseball awful, but also a lot of fun. Just suppress your urge to shout out Mystery Science Theater-isms until it arrives on home video. Which will no doubt be very soon.