I had to think about this.
I don’t want to bad mouth this movie, because I think it was an earnest attempt at good storytelling, with some really good performances. But somehow, Reign Of Fire just doesn’t work.
It may be the premise which takes away the myth and magic of dragons, those legendary creatures of lore, and makes them all too real, and therefore quite boring despite their lethal breath.
It could be the many, many, many plot holes and the way that the filmmakers very politely ask you to suspend your disbelief far beyond what I consider humanly possible.
It could be the vision of yet another post-apocalyptic world. That’s just not my thing.
But all that being said, Reign of Fire is not a bad movie…
There’s great acting from Christian Bale, who I thought looked disturbingly like an Amityville Horror era James Brolin. His character’s all heart and compassion and leadership, and damn it, the writers meant well, and Bale does a great job with what he has to work with, but there’s something missing.
And there’s Matthew McConaughey, all bald and buff and tattooed, doing a great job as an American soldier who leads a new breed of dragon slayers and hooks up with Bale to “bring down the beast”.
After FRAILTY I have all kinds of respect for McConaughey. Here, just like Bale, he does everything he can with his character. A great job, but yeah, there’s something missing.
I’ve never seen Izabella Scorupco, but she’s really, really pretty, and does a great job here as well. No, really, she does.
But guess what...exactly.
There’s something missing.
I can’t say director Rob Bowman didn’t try.
He did. The whole cast and crew tried.
The dragons look pretty cool when they fly around, and there's an excellent scene where a play is staged to entertain children, but as good as the effort is, Reign Of Fire somehow need to be better…