Harry here... This is the exact sort of fricking movie that I'm dying to see right now at 6:12am this nice Thursday Morning! Ahem... BUUUUT it isn't showing so I'm shit out of luck. Word has been positive from the start... Smilin Jack Ruby has been so stoked on this baby, you'd see his beam of promising light on Mars. There is something about a Dragon movie that makes me WANT to believe. The burn from DRAGONHEART is still sore, and while DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS blew ass from 30 yards, those Blue lips screaming to be thrown the rod, just cracked me up the right way... But as a bad super cheese film. THIS is promising serious ass-whupping Dragon action and aftermath. This is what's for dinner as Mitchum would say...
Reign of Fire press screening review:
First...
For those of you who have been proclaiming this movie to be the next Battlefield Earth, I am pleased to say that you were all very, very wrong. While REIGN OF FIRE isn’t the most original concept (it has a little bit of Aliens, The Road Warrior and Dirty Dozen thrown in the mix) it is definitely the most entertaining movie of the summer. It not only boasts some great special effects and scary looking monsters, it also has strong and believable characters that you really care about.
By now we have all seen enough of the trailers and television promos to know the basic setup - Dragons have awakened in the near future and have systematically taken over the entire world. They breathe fire and incinerate everything in their path while the remaining human survivors must band together to stop the devastation. We have Quinn (Christian Bale), who is the leader of a small community that has survived by hiding inside of an old castle on the English countryside. We get to see how these people barely manage to thrive and keep up hope that mankind will rebuild and remain the dominant species... then we witness a vicious attack by a dragon that has wandered near the castle and we truly begin to understand their plight.
Into their world comes a military squad of Dragonslayers led by Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey), a hotheaded American soldier with a passion for killing the scaly beasts. He’s discovered a way to defeat the dragons, a way to give mankind the upper hand. This starts off the journey of two natural born leaders who must join together to defeat the winged beasts once and for all. Okay, if all that sounded like something you’d read off the back of a video box cover then it means I’m taking too long in getting to the point.
Reign of Fire kicks ass.
In fact, this movie kicks more ass than anything I’ve had the pleasure of seeing all summer (and I really enjoyed Spider-Man and Star Wars). One of the big differences between a movie like this and a movie like Godzilla is that the characters are actually interesting people. They feel like real human beings, not just food for a big scary monster to chew on. Christian Bale surprised me. He does a hell of a job as the good guy (for a change) and totally gets into the ‘action hero’ mode. He is a man who cares about the people he’s protecting and he does so with his very life. The same can be said for Matthew McConaughey’s character, a hardened military commander who sheds tears for the soldiers he’s lost in battle.
I must be kidding, right? There’s no way that you can pull off something like this without sacrificing plot, characters or both. Well, this movie managed to do it all and keep the audience thoroughly entertained. What more can I say? Great characters. Fire breathing Dragons. Sky diving as bait to catch a hungry flying reptile. This movie has it all (even a terrific ‘bughunt’ sequence through the charred remains of London). Oh, and you George Lucas fans are going to love the homage to Star Wars, it’s one of the best scenes in the movie!
Psyclops
