Reign of Fire
Once again, another movie I wanted to see but never got around to it. The trailer looked interesting enough to spend my hard-earned matinee dollars on.
The movie starts out in present-day London, where a wise-cracking kid, known only as Quinn, meets up with his mother, who works in a mine shaft of some sort. One of the workers finds an open hole and the kids goes in, only to confront a big-ass dragon. Lots of disaster ensues, and suddenly we jump 20 years into the future. Society appears to be killed off by a horde of dragons, until Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey) arrives at a fortress ran by Quinn (Christian Bale).
Van Zan is the over-the-top, bald with scruffy beard, macho American military guy, and isn't much liked by the his new hosts. Quinn is the leader of a village of those who survived the utter decimation brought upon by the dragons. Being a bit stand-offish at first, Quinn lets Van Zan stay. Van Zan and his small team of troops are dragon slayers, and proceed to prove it by unconventional means. Oh yeah, Van Zan's team flies helicopters and drives tanks. Soon all is good as they team up and try to figure out how to wipe out the growing numbers of their common enemy.
Imagine Mad Max meets up with the crew from Pitch Black and they both go on a little hunting expedition, except the creatures are a helluva lot bigger that the ones in Pitch Black. There’s the occasional dry spell, but when the action sequences kick into gear, it's lots of CGI goodness. My main complaint about this movie the lack of dragon scenes. For a movie about dragons that have conquered the earth, there sure is a lack of sequences involving them. After deducing how to snuff out the existence of these winged fire-breathing bastards, they know their mission. Another complaint resides here though. If the wisdom of mankind and air artillery throughout the ages can’t kill these things, how can they be killed by….well, you’ll have to see it. The extermination is nice, but a little far fetched.
If you’re into dragons and lots of fire, it’s worth a look.
