Reign of Fire
Tags: dark, fantasy, action

Plot synopsis:
The film opens at an unspecified date in the early 21st century. During construction on the London Underground, workers penetrate an underground cave. A huge dragon emerges from hibernation, incinerating the workers with its breath. The only survivor is a boy, Quinn Abercromby (Ben Thornton), whose mother, Karen (Alice Krige)—the construction crew chief—is crushed to death protecting him. The dragon flies out of the Underground, and soon more dragons appear. It is revealed through newspaper clippings and the narration that dragons are the species responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. They are speculated to hibernate after destroying most living creatures until the planet repopulates. After the dragons reawaken, humanity resists with military force, including with nuclear weapons in 2010. This, however, only hastens the destruction, and within a few years, humans are nearly extinct.
In 2020, Quinn (Christian Bale) leads a community of survivors in a Northumberland castle. They are starving while awaiting harvest. Although most trust Quinn, some are restless and defiant. Eddie (David Kennedy) and his group steal a truck to pick tomatoes, though it is too soon for harvest. They are attacked by a dragon; one man is killed, and the rest are surrounded by fire. Quinn, Creedy (Gerard Butler), and Jared (Scott Moutter) rescue them with old fire engines, but the dragon kills Eddie's son before escaping.
The Kentucky Irregulars, a group of Americans led by Denton Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey), arrive with a Chieftain tank and AgustaWestland AW109 utility helicopter, the latter of which is piloted by Alex Jensen (Izabella Scorupco). Van Zan has a system for hunting dragons and knows their weakness: poor vision before sunset. He and Quinn kill the dragon who destroyed the crops.
Van Zan tells Quinn all the dragons they have found have been female. The Americans believe there is only one male—if they kill it, the dragons can no longer reproduce. Although Quinn knows about the male dragon, which killed his mother, he refuses to help.
Van Zan orders his soldiers to enlist the castle's best men. Quinn argues that if they find the male, it will kill them and find the castle. Van Zan's group is attacked by the dragon in the ruins of a town 66 miles (106 km) from London. The dragon then finds the castle and kills most of its inhabitants. Quinn tries to get the survivors to a bunker; Creedy saves him and is killed by the dragon in his place.
Van Zan and Jensen return and free those in the bunker. Quinn tells Van Zan he will help them hunt the male dragon. They fly to London and find hundreds of dragons, with smaller ones cannibalized by the larger male. Van Zan tells Quinn about a plan to shoot explosives down the dragon's throat with a crossbow. Van Zan fires, but the dragon destroys the arrow and eats Van Zan. Quinn and Alex lure the dragon to ground level, where Quinn fires into the dragon's mouth, killing it.
Later, Quinn and Alex erect a radio tower on a hill overlooking the North Sea. There has been no dragon sighting for over three months. Jared arrives to say they have contacted a group of French survivors who want to speak to their leader. Quinn tells Jared he is now their leader and dedicates himself to rebuilding.

Review: If this had been advertised as a more human film about after these Dragons have completely wasted everything, I really think this could've been seen as a good film.
It unfortunately set expectations high in the wrong sort of viewers by a mind-blowingly epic trailer.Christian Bale, Gerard Butler and Matthew McConaughey all deliver their role superbly, and the script isn't as bad as it's made out to be either.
The dragons were realistic-looking, the scenery dreary but the story interesting and intense in spots.I wouldn't buy it, but I would definitely recommend it if you are looking for a night of adventure on film.
Christian Bale replete with his best "know wot I mean" brit accent was pretty good I thought as Quinn the reluctant colony leader.
Quinn (Christian Bale, with whiskers and glottal stops), who was on the scene as a boy in London when the first sleeping dragon awakened in a cave unearthed by an Underground project his mum was working on, leads a group of survivors in the north of England who're just trying to get a crop going for the next year and save a little mob of children.
What follows is the finale.If you probe too deeply into the premise you're not going to have any fun, but fun is what this movie offers, glorious mindless fun and, above all, fabulous apocalyptic visuals of twisted metal, crepuscular landscapes, dark hulking ruins, and men crawling through them to fire off weapons at the evil birds, which look very graceful as they sweep through the skies and spurt out long expanding streams of fire.
Working with Ridley Scott's cinematographer Adrian Biddle, X-Files director Rob Bowman has produced the best fantasy landscape this year next to `Lord of the Rings.'  When Van Zan leads a hunt in the sky, it's like a computer game, and sometimes we see the game through the eyes of the dragon and it looks like a degraded digital film.
However, it's not ingenuity of conception but sheer aesthetic appeal that makes the visuals of this movie so good.The other large positive factor is the very solid, mostly English cast including a number of appealing youngsters led by Scott James Moutter as Jared, Quinn's adopted son, not to mention Bale, who brings a striking level of naturalness and conviction to his role as the sensitive, conscience-stricken Quinn.
Other things are lacking too, such as more variety in the dragons, more recognizable details of the wrecked London of the final scenes, some more colorful characters among Quinn's community, as in post-apocalyptic classics like `Mad Max.' But to say that is to miss the point, which is that this is a fast, exhilarating ride that's a feast for the eyes.
It amazes me that so many people are quick to put the boot in to this (admittedly) silly but entertaining b-grade post-apocalyptic thriller yet line up to watch the absolutely awful and overblown Star Wars movies.
Christian Bale ('American Psycho') and Matthew McConaughey ('Frailty') are both pretty good as the leader of an underground community and a hardass military man respectively, who both have different approaches to their shared problem - the ongoing threat of dragon attacks.
It's a 'post-apocalypse' story where mankind is reduced to living an almost stone-age existence by a global disaster, but this time the apocalypse is brought about not by nuclear weapons but a race of dragons unleashed from the depths of the earth by over-ambitious mining!
Critics here in the UK panned it when it came out, saying that it needed more special effects, but they completely missed out on the charm of the film, which was in the ingenious ways that it showed the human race had been changed by the onset of the dragons.
maybe an extra 2 minute scene there could have helped to explain the final demise of the dragons.Overall, this movie is a winner!
That's what I thought anyways after seeing the trailer for Reign of Fire, Rob Bowman's 2002 post- apocalyptic thriller about dragons and the humans that fear them.
However, the prospect of making a high budget special effects film about the dragon apocalypse must have seemed a little far-fetched.
Reign of Fire does succeed however in creating a great post-apocalyptic atmosphere, which bears significant resemblance to the world seen in the future sequences of James Cameron's Terminator movies.
Van's habit of knowing nearly everything about the dragons leads one to doubt whether or not the film-makers knew how to resolve the movie.By the end of the film, the audience will likely be rooting for Van Zan's death and wondering why it hadn't come earlier.
The moderate special effects do not make up for the fact that this film lacks the exciting action sequences, quirky dialogue and fun character's that define its genre..
Quinn leads one such group until a group of US ex-soldiers turn up, led by Van Zan, who have more of a mind to fight back.To enjoy this film you need to get over two big obstacles.
It's hard to watch Quinn's group in a damp castle when you know you SHOULD be seeing dragons rip into the world's cities.
The actual climax is also logically very weak but is very exciting and has a real nice touch plot wise.Bale is good and is not as muscley as the Americans.
Once again we have the typical gray-and-khaki hued post-apocalyptic world filled with burnt out cities, roaming bands of grimy-faced survivors, and enough soot, dirt and rust to make the audience feel the need for a shower once they get out of the theatre (in other words, the `Mad Max' look).The apocalypse in this case comes in the form of a race of fire-breathing dragons that are awakened from their millennia-long state of dormancy thanks to a deep-drilling construction project in downtown London.
In this kind of movie, it is probably best not to ask questions of this sort and to just go along with the sheer inanity of it all.The first specimen to be unleashed is discovered by a young London lad named Quinn Abercrombie who, 18 years later, has grown up to be the hunky Christian Bale, leader of a group of survivors holed up in a kind of mountainside fortress with very little hope for a future.
From then on it becomes a battle of the minds and muscles between these two strong-willed individuals who have decidedly different ideas about how best to ensure the survival of the human race.Movies like `Reign of Fire' pretty much preclude any real critical analysis.
This is a fairly entertaining post-apocalypse movie that sees a few huddled survivors living in squalid conditions in a Britain destroyed by fire-breathing dragons.
The running time is extremely short and action-focused, detailing efforts to destroy a dragon and put an end to the endless oppression faced by the human survivors.
The American lead is an unrecognisable Matthew McConaughey who I thought was very good, playing a borderline psychopath with a real disregard for human life.
Watching REIGN OF FIRE I was left with the impression that the script was originally written as a bleak post apocalyptic drama in the tradition of John Wyndham and John Christopher , where a Hollywood studio decided the script wasn't marketable enough so a studio executive decided to introduce dragons into the screenplay as a commercial gimmick Where REIGN OF FIRE works best is in its survivalist themes .
Unlike 28 DAYS LATER this movie almost works as post apocalyptic thriller These "Shattered Earth " ideas are very convincing but as soon as the dragons are introduced the illusion falls apart because for a film marketed as featuring fire breathing dragons ( You have seen the posters right ?
Very little thought indeed seems to have gone into this aspect of the script and needless to say the ending is a cop out Note to Hollywood executives - If you're going to finance a film that features a desperate band of survivors can you cut out gimmicks like zombies and dragons please ?
The acting was good, suspense was kept high by not having too many dragons all the time and it just becoming a shoot-em-up, and the special effects were awesome - the scene at the end of the movie where Christian Bale is lifted off the ground by impact (I won't spoil it for anyone by saying why) was just fantastic and worth the admission money alone!
Meh. Reign Of Fire is certainly not a very good movie, but it's fascinating nonetheless, if a little frustrating in the sense that there's a good story buried under almost two hours of Matthew McConaughey and Christian Bale screaming at each other.
In 2020, Quinn (Christian Bale) leads a group of survivors trying to wait out the dragons in a castle in Northumberland.
Quinn is reluctant to let his people fight and even more reluctant to face the origin of the dragon threat.This is a lot fiery dark loud ashen angry action.
The best thing about this movie is that they are fighting dragons in the modern world.
In fact, the Jared character himself didn't really seem like he actually contributed to the story so the entire scene didn't really seem necessary.Another thing that bugged me a little is that Christian Bale often spoke his lines extremely fast.
In my case, I've grown so tired of seeing dragons in movies where they were just small parts of stories like ploys in a giant strategy game.
This film could've been good, but that all went out the window when Director Rob Bowman took the helm, the man who gave as travesties like "Airbourne" and "Elektra", but those are tales for a different day, my friend.
I was disappointed in Bale and the film as a whole.My Grade: D DVD Extras: 3 Featurettes (Breathing Life into Terror, If You can't take the heat, and Conversations with Rob Bowman); Theatrical Trailer; Trailers for "The Count of Monte Cristo", and "Bad Company"; Video Game trailers for "Reign of Fire" and "Kingdom Hearts".
Maybe it's supposed to remind us of old WWII films?The Disney version will probably be better.A study in why simply adding fire and big booms to a movie is not enough.And why, when in species danger, do humans have to dress up as medieval persons?Christian Bale should have quit at 15 and become a tax collector, duller than the sharp end of an egg.Don't pay for it, wait for it on Mystery Theater 3000..
The movie has no real plot, it has no logic it all, bad acting (Scorupo being worst), even the special effects are not really worth mentioning, if they were, this wouldn't help, either.
There hasn't been a good movie about dragons in a long long time.
Come to think of it, there hasn't been a good movie about dragons , period.
Having watched this film twice now, I cannot help but get the feeling that the original screenplay pitched at the money men was significantly different from the end result.The publicity that even managed to suck a usual sceptical person such as me in had everyone believing this was chock full of endless dragons wrecking the world in general and London in particular, mainly thanks to one of the best bits of cinema poster art for years.All the good bits however where tragically glossed over in a naff one minute monologue and we where left with some strange hybrid of Mad Max meets Dragonslayer with the cast offs from a TV Movie about Vietnam thrown in for good measure.Health & Safety rules where set back several thousand years by the terrible opening sequence (a child on a building site is a no no for a starter but then let him crawl around subterranean earth workings  all without safety equipment!?!?) I can see the production meeting where some suits said something along the lines of 'Yeah nice script but when do the American Forces arrive?' and so shoe horned in was a travelling band of burnt out marine loonies and I suspect out went any intelligence and interest this script once possessed.There where a few good bits, notably the dragons - when they eventually bothered to make an appearance  where well done.
Great effects, great looking dragons and tremendous acting by Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey!Izabella Scorupco looked different but good!
Bale's character showed more near the end.Matthew McConaugheys' awesome look with a bald head,beard and tattoos and great character made this movie even better in My opinion.I was surprised what happened near the end.If you want too see a great dragon then see The Reign of Fire!.
And honestly, for a fun little action flick this film does a great job at keeping my attention and entertaining me just enough for that hour and a half.Reign of Fire is plenty entertaining for what its worth.
The acting is fine, with the exception of McConaughey, who is great.The Last Word: A nice dragon movie.
The post-apocalypse world the movie is set in feels like it comes straight out of "Waterworld" or "Mad Max".
I mean when you've a cast with Christian Bale, Matthew McConaughey, Izabella Scorupco and Gerard Butler, you can't accuse the movie of bad acting but you can accuse it of having bad characters and dialog.
It ironically is Matthew McConaughey in his totally over-the-top tough guy role that delivers the best performance of the movie and also puts down the most interesting character.
Still I think that Rob Bowman should be given another chance, since he definitely has the potential as a director to make some good, fun but yet simple action, science-fiction and/or fantasy movies, one day.I wouldn't exactly recommend watching it, although it sure is still a watchable enough one.
The first time I watched the movie I thought of the director like a cloaked man with a magic wand makings fires explode all through the film and making his cast run like crazy for their lives!
I really liked the film even though I thought it would be just another "dragon story".
Watch the movie and enjoy the action...looking over your shoulder to check out if there is a dragon flying right at you!.
The characters themselves were suitably tepid , Chrisitian Bale (did he wear false teeth in this movie ?)done his testosterone filled hero bit (yawn!) The Dragons incinerating and munching through the last straggling survivors were hilarious, I found it amusing, not because I am especially warped but because I couldn't care less.
The acting is really good in the film - that includes the American 1980s action group of people.
Evening, beer, pizza and Mcconaughey killing dragons - a pretty nice kit for having a good time, don't you think?.
The lead players are good value, Bale is grizzled and buffed, putting some quality emotional pathos into Quinn in the process, while McConaughey is on full tilt overdrive excess as the battle hardened Van Zan. You can call it ham or cheese if you like, but McConaughey is having a good time, and the film, and its delicious premise, calls for such a fun and blunderbuss character.
Firstly I'll say that I enjoyed the film and it kept my interest to the very end but ultimately it was clichéd and unoriginal in most respects.The characters and settings will be fairly familiar to anybody who has ever watched an apocalyptic movie such as Mad Max, The Postman etc...
For a movie about dragons there are surprising few that actually show up on screen and in action.
Some lighthearted action would had helped, there was a bit when Bale and Gerard Butler recreate scenes from the Star Wars movies and the film needed more fun like that.Some of the CGI dragons are good but we do not see them often enough..
Twenty years later, Quinn Abercromby(played by Christian Bale) leads a group of survivors in England who are stationed in a castle, doing battle with the dragons.
One day, a group of Americans led by Denton Van Zan(played by Mathew McConaughey) claims to have found a way to slay the dragons, and a battle for leadership control ensues, though both men will have to work together to save their groups, and humanity.
Christian Bale was good as Quinn, and Matthew McConaughy shines as Van Zan. Gerard Butler was wasted in the film, not because his performance was bad, by no means, but because his character needed to have more to do.
Matthew McConaughey and Christian Bale carry the post-apocalyptic testosterone film well and find ways of making "dragon slaying" seem exciting.
This movie plays out pretty good for the most part, you see lots of dragons, but quite frankly they all look exactly the same.
Very good fantasy film, with outstanding special effects and good performances by Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey, as opposite forces.
Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey  do pretty good job of keeping the story moving.
Because on the DVD box it gave the impression of being a post-apocalyptic dragon-battling action film.
As for the special effects, I thought them superb, enough that watching it on DVD has me going back to check out the effects again.As for technical issues like the parachuters not having altimeters, or why dragons ate ash but still ate people, or showing the world getting destroyed, etc.
Matthew MaConnahagh and Christian Bale give good performances as two foes coming together to wipe out the dragon race.
This movie is different in the fact it's about dragons and their rule of man kind.The acting was incredable for this film and the special effects were top of the line.
The plot was a lil iffy but thats ok cuase its about human survival and not the dragons.( The dragons were very well done CGI and creature effects) It's a good movie and its very entertaining..
Rob Bowman's direction is above average, Bale and McConnaughey deliver strong performances, the dragon effects are excellent, and the action scenes we do get are first-rate (three fight scenes in all, adding up to maybe fifteen minutes).