Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
We’ve only got a few days to go before this film opens, and I know I’ll be there on Friday night. I’ve already seen ROAD TO PERDITION, which makes the decision an easy one. Harry’s seeing the film today. There are screenings all over the place. And the reactions range from “Best ride of the summer” to “total trash” so far.
For example, here’s the Pole Of Justice...
Heya, PoleOfJustice here with more rantings from projectionland…
Well, we started out with some trailers, one of which is for SHANGHAI KNIGHTS. I’m really anticipating this, ‘cause SHANGHAI NOON was a blast. Is it completely stupid? It damn well better be! Some yahoo in front of me complained that he was tired of Jackie Chan, that his stunts didn’t impress him anymore. I thought: did Buster Keaton have to deal with this crap? I mean, did anyone complain “Well, he’s just gonna sit there and look forlorn while stuff breaks. What’s the point?” People, there is no nobility in being jaded.
So, on to REIGN OF FIRE. Spoilers, although this is, IMHO, a movie that works better when you have an idea of what’s coming…
First off, let’s get something straight: REIGN OF FIRE isn’t about dragons. Yes, there are dragons in it, yes, the humans in the film are in a situation defined by the presence of dragons, but it ain’t about them. What it IS about is humanity, mythmaking, survival, and sheer, unadulterated bravery in the face of impossible odds. If you want a CGI fest, stop reading here and go rent ARMAGEDDON. If, on the other hand, if you have some sense of the sweeping arc of human history, and you are still in possession of a cerebral cortex, and like to take it out jogging occasionally, then you need to see this, like now.
The film starts out like the trailer: kid goes into tunnel, finds dragon, chaos ensues. We are then treated to a lightning fast history of how the dragons laid waste to civilization, how they rise up every few million years or so to burn everything and feed on the ash, and how they then hibernate until the ecology has replenished itself enough to start the cycle over again. At first blush this seemed a bit rushed, but in the context of the film it couldn’t be any other way: director Rob Bowman is preparing you for a broad, sweeping telling of a new legend
In this sense, ROF reminded me of UNBREAKABLE, in that it tells the tale of a larger than life, eons old legend/myth that has its origins in real human behavior. For the observant, Bowman clues us in early on: Christian Bale and his best friend re-enact the “Luke, I am your father” battle scene from THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK for a group of breathless children. This is brilliant: it works as a cute little reference for the audience, but it really maps out the films intent. Lucas has explicitly stated that he was creating a myth with the larger than life characters of the original trilogy, and that is precisely what Bowman is doing with ROF. What’s brilliant about this scene is that it also dovetails into the origins of oral history, how tales told breathlessly around a campfire resulted in the icons of civilization. And that’s the moment when the “movie” stops and the “film” begins: you aren’t seeing a dragon flick, you’re witnessing the rebuilding of human society from the ground up. You’re seeing how storytelling wasn’t originally just a way to pass the time, but how it shaped and became history. And with a bedtime prayer scene immediately after the storytelling, you’re seeing how prayer, faith, and ritual stemmed from basic, unambiguous human need, not from high concept, abstract spirituality. Human society, ground zero.
Then Matthew McConaughey and his army shows up, and we’re at societal interaction and conflict: mistrust and ideological differences abound as Bale first rejects, then grudgingly allows the band of soldiers to move in. The two butt heads, and the beauty of it is that they’re both right: Bale wants to protect his large, desperate family, and McConaughey wants to make the necessary sacrifices to save the human race. This is after the first real dragon sighting of the film, in which three soldiers dive from a helicopter (!) in order to try and lure the beast into the sight of a very, very big gun. The dragon slaying scene in outstanding. Show-off CGI is downplayed in favor of genuine tension as the figures dart in and out of heavy cloud cover. Incredible, and seriously nerve-wracking, which is more than I can say for ANY action sequence I can recall in recent memory.
Then we are treated to a bit of explaining: turns out the dragons breed like fish, in that several females produce eggs, and one male fertilizes them. Take out the male, the species dies off. Turns out the male is the one which was found in the tunnel in the film’s beginning, and since Bale is the kid that found him in the beginning, the two enemies must now join forces to wipe out the core of the problem.
McConaughey tries once without Bale, and fails completely, actually leading a dragon back to the castle. The dragon attacking the castle is absolutely gorgeous, every Gothic, goose bump inducing archetype rolled into one visually astounding sequence. The film then plays out its themes with a small group embarking on a mission to take out the male once and for all…
This is easily the biggest surprise of the year, for
me at least. I was willing to see it, but wasn’t particularly looking forward to it, having burned out a bit on brain-dead CGI demos a while ago. People looking for an action film will be sadly disappointed, but that’s their problem. DAMMIT, Hollywood, THIS IS HOW YOU DO THIS. Subtlety, intelligence, and a deep understanding of who we are and what it is we’re made of. The sheer depth of REIGN OF FIRE makes the way-too-impressed-with-itself MINORITY REPORT look even more shallow and pseudo-intellectual (which, frankly, I didn’t think was possible.) If this doesn’t make some serious impact, and by that I mean a take of $150-200 million, then we as a society richly deserve every putrid loaf of Scooby Poop that Hollywood sees fit to flush down are ever willing throats. I can’t shake the feeling that many of the people who complain about the stupidity of Hollywood product will be the same people who will deride this because they “wanted to see more shit blow up,” as one Mensa candidate near me complained. If so, they forfeit their right to ever complain about Hollywood again. This is a REAL, INTELLIGENT FILM, and it’s been so long since the American public has been given one in an action setting that this might just fly right over a lot of otherwise intelligent people’s heads. Sad.
... and here’s MacLeod, who dropped a HUGE GIANT UNGODLY SPOILER in his review that I didn’t see coming. Tread lightly if you don’t want to know...
Hi there Harry,
I wasn't going to write this review for you, but I really wanted to save some people the heartache of seeing Reign of Fire. I saw it tonight because a local radio station ran a sneak preview and luckily my brother works for the station. So to make a long story short, he got me and my girlfriend a pass to Reign of Fire.
Unfortunately, I went into this movie expecting alot. From the trailers, I expected wall to wall action with great special effects and some kick-ass fighting. Instead I got a slow, drawn-out drama about dragons. And the dragons had very little screen time, only two or three main scenes where there was anything cool happening.
To give you an idea of the kind of movies I like, some of my favorites are Braveheart, The Matrix, Evil Dead Trilogy and The Abyss. I hope this gives you an idea of the genre of film I like, because Reign of Fire seemed like it was right up my alley. But it just seemed to miss the mark on so many levels.
First off, the acting wasn't bad... it just wasn't that good. Girls will be given lots of eye candy, because Matthew McConaughey was pretty darn ripped through out the movie. Christian Bale wasn't too bad either, but guys on the other hand don't get much to look at, besides a blond who doesn't do too much and isn't all that pretty.
Next, the special effects were actually pretty decent. Most of the cool looking stuff has already been shown in the trailers, so don't go in expecting to be blown away with lots more, because there just isn't. Dragonheart's special effects were just a little worse than what is in Reign of Fire, so I hope that puts it in perspective.
Finally... we come to the story. What story??? This was not a well thought out movie. In the 10 minutes after the movie, I thought up about 3 or 4 major plot holes that just didn't get answered in the film. I'll list these below, but there will be spoilers, so I just want to make sure everyone knows this. I'm also not going to go into the storyline because everyone I'm sure by now knows it... in a nutshell, dragons take over the world and we fight back. Nuff said...
Ok, here are the main plot holes (some spoilers below):
1. In London, in the beginning of the film, they unearth one male dragon. And suddenly there are millions of dragons (all of which are female by the way) and no where do they say were these other dragons came from. They just magically appeared, I guess.
2. There seems to be an endless supply of gasoline to fuel a helicopter and countless tanks and trucks. With the world in the state it is, where is all this gas coming from... whose producing it? This is kind of like Waterworld... Earth completely underwater, but still the bad guys have jet skis fueled by gasoline.
3. All the children are dressed in the same blue toga-like outfit. I'm guessing they just had lots of material and that was the easiest thing to make.
4. Towards the end when they go to fight the male dragon in London, they come across London over-run with hundreds of female dragons and the male dragon. From some reason, all the females just up and leave. There was no reason given and it just made it a little too convienent for our heroes.
5. From some other reason, McConaughey sacrifices himself at the end of the film by jumping off a chimney stack at the dragon with his nifty axe over his head (this is shown in the trailer) and is immediately ate. He could have slid back down the ladder he climbed up, with hope to reorganize and go from there... but it didn't happen.
There were some other things that kind of bothered me about this movie, but I can't remember them at this moment. I just found it very frustrating to sit there and see these glaring problems with a movie that had so much potential. Oh well... I guess you can't win them all... but here's hoping Austin Powers 3 doesn't disappoint like this did. By the way Harry, you can call me MacLeod.
See what I mean? At this point, I have no idea who to trust. I’ll see it for myself, and I can’t wait to discuss it with all of you this weekend.
"Moriarty" out.
