Die Herrschaft des Feuers

As long as you're not expecting the best movie ever made, you'll enjoy this film. It's well-acted, well written, visually depressing (as a post-apocalyptic story should be), and inspiring. If you're a pop culture geek, you'll love all the faces you'll recognize from other projects such as the Dark Knight Trilogy, 300, Gotham, and Game of Thrones. You'll even spot homage to Star Wars in an old-school play! This movie was fun and moving.

I love this film. It shows the very human struggle to survive after they've been knocked from the top of the food chain. It blends medieval mythology with a modern era breathlessly. Definitely an original take on Man vs Dragon. Now to get this straight, this is a film about Humans, not about Dragons. The dragons merely supply the unique reason for the apocalypse. This is a film about the post-apocalypse, not the apocalypse. It's not about skies full of Dragons turning worldwide armed forces into ash on an epic scale. It's not about Dragons setting the world, quite literally, on fire. It's about after all that's happened.

Which is a shame this was advertised as a film about Dragons burning all life as we know it. Of course, everyone goes in expecting to see 90 minutes of Dragons destroying everything. 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 effects were great and the Dragons do look pretty realistic, to the point I almost believed this was a documentary. Okay, so there are some plot holes, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to fill those in yourself. I mean, does everything have to be explained so obviously? The only reason this film gets 4 stars and not 5 is because, being a film about human struggle, it could've done with a bit more character development. Other than that, it's a deeply entertaining, well-acted, suspenseful film.

Don't knock it before you see it for yourself.

Seems like I'm in a minority enjoying this one! 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. Yes, I said b-grade, because despite the budget being close to $100 million, that's exactly what it is, a b-grade sci fi movie, no more, no less. Fans of Roy Ward Baker's 'Quatermass and the Pit', Larry Cohen's 'Q: The Winged Serpent' and Tobe Hooper's 'Lifeforce', all of which 'Reign Of Fire' reminded me of at various points, will enjoy this one more than the Blockbuster crowd. 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. Yes, in this future dragons are real and have devastated the world, and only a handful of human survivors exist. Once you can accept that premise, and some of the "scientific" explanations for the why and wherefores of the dragons, you're in for a wild ride. No-one's gonna argue this is a great movie, but it's a lot of fun, and I recommend it, especially with beer and pizza.

The usual quota of "surface reviews" here. Are we living in a totally one-dimensional society these days that has no time now for unsupported fantasy - "Just the facts Ma'am, Just the facts!"

We have here an adult fairytale no less, yet what do I read (and I include paid media critics here) but absurd negative comments such as "How did McConaughey and his intrepid band of marines come up with the fuel to cross the atlantic?" "Why are the children seemingly so well fed in a period of pestilence?" "Where does the seemingly limitless fuel come from?" etc etc. Who CARES????????? this is a DRAGON fantasy for God sakes! Someone want to set up a Government enquiry as to why fairies speak English? the possibility that Humpty Dumpty had a middle-ear infection? Perhaps the Easter Bunny has some communicable diseases that he should be tested for?

Ok REIGN OF FIRE is not up there with other sci-fi classics and the marketing department should be answering charges of misrepresentation for that poster showing an aerial armada of helicopters battling the fire-breathing beasties over central London - that just never happens but I gotta tell you REIGN OF FIRE has some of the greatest set designs and cinematography I have ever seen. It is extremely interesting to LOOK at from a technical viewpoint. The dragons themselves make the least interesting contribution to the film and except for the final confrontation which almost "gets there" they are really secondary to the film itself. If you were to actually record the amount of dragon "screen time" I doubt it would be 18 minutes....and most of them are not far off laughable. Curiously, that aspect alone should have wrecked it for me...but it didn't - I found the "wasteland asharamas" totally credible and involving.

I thought the much maligned McConaughey's role not without interest. Still haven't worked out whether or not "Mad Matt" was supposed to be some hybrid creation - part Patton, part Maximus, part Captain Ahab or just all "grunt." He certainly handled his last solo flight with flair and derring-do. Basil Rathbone himself never swung a meaner sword! Christian Bale replete with his best "know wot I mean" brit accent was pretty good I thought as Quinn the reluctant colony leader. What I couldn't believe is how the years have treated Izabella Scorupco the most beautiful Bond girl I ever saw (GOLDENEYE). I realise that a decade of fighting dragons and close-contact aeriel combat takes a lot out of a girl but she looked 20 years older! I would never have recognised her. Totally shattered an illusion I have maintained of her. If she said "Boys with Toys" now, I think I'd need a double vodka-martini!

But I digress. The dragon fx were just so-so, they saved the best for last sensibly. The script had its moments but the production work and set-design were simply awesome...SO good in fact, the rest of the film really didn't matter! Overall I would bequeath it a 6.9. Worth seeing if one is prepared to watch it in the spirit that it was made.

This is an excellent dark fantasy, an adult fantasy, if you will and the acting is well up to the story. It is a good tight script and keeps a fast pace. The allegory of a post nuclear age brought on by the advent of dragons freed from a millennial dormancy, points to the problems of survival in such a world. Many of our greatest science fiction authors have speculated on this, and this film tends to bring it all together nicely.

My one complaint with this film is that it was shot so dark that it is hard to see a lot of the action. The novel idea of one male for all of the female dragons is an excellent one however. Much of the look of the dragons tends to remind one of the 1997 version of Godzilla, with the lairs of creatures underground. 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. Still a very watchable film.