REIGN OF FIRE review

Boy, I was nervous going into this one. Last night I got in two negative reviews for REIGN OF FIRE that I didn’t even want to read, so I tossed them to Moriarty to put up. I didn’t want to go into REIGN OF FIRE with anybody’s negative B.S.

I love the concepts of dragons, in fact in my living room is a museum mounted dragon head by Johnny Fischner – who is a well known creator of Dinosaur Replicas for Museums all over the world…. Meanwhile upon the opposite wall is a latex dragon hand puppet created by special effects artist Paul Smith (Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 & Blood Simple) for an unfilmed fantasy project from the eighties. In my room I have that gorgeous toy of Harryhausen’s classic dragon from SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD, but unfortunately… my favorite cinematic dragon… Vermithraax Pagorative doesn’t have a toy I can have. Matthew Robbins’ classic DRAGONSLAYER was my all-time favorite dragon movie.

Why?

Matthew took the concept seriously. What would a world be like that had beasts so much more powerful, with enough intelligence to dominate and sublimate the will of man into a state of servitude? By blending a certain amount of Shirley Jackson’s terrifying THE LOTTERY into a story of a kingdom’s unholy bargain with a beast… well, Matthew managed to really make a dragon film that had more going on than just a few effects shots.

Now, the last major Dragon movie to come out was DRAGONHEART and I wanted to love that excruciating piece of shit, but… ultimately it was a collection of curdled corn in a mass of digested wretchedly heinous stomach rot. I loathed that film. I dreamt of what that film could have and should have been, but alas… it was a collection of cool trailers of beautiful visual effects work with zero characters and zero plot and zero social ramifications for the existence of Dragons.

And the last Dragon film was DUNGEONS & DRAGONS which was really deliriously awful in the silliest of stoner drunk glee. “Throw me the Rod” indeed… Hilariously incompetent as to be near a work of demented genius. Truly a love / hate bi-polar film experience.

Then I started hearing about REIGN OF FIRE. I wasn’t familiar with the screenwriters… Gregg Chabot and Kevin Peterka… They hadn’t done anything that I knew about. Rumors about an insanely long 240 page script were floating about, and the director… Rob Bowman, well I loved his X-FILES series work, but that feature film of his was crippled by its story being so interwoven into the plot of the series that it was hard to see it as anything more than… just another episode. For me, as a feature film director, Rob Bowman had yet to be proven.

Then there was the casting of the two leads. Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey. Now I happen to like both of these guys, but neither of them necessarily scream DRAGON movie material. As those first shots of Matthew came online… I thought, “What a fucking weird look!” I mean, what was that? Some sort of Russian dock worker look from around the time of the Revolution meets George Clooney’s Seth Gecko tattoo on spread mode?

Next I saw that first REIGN OF FIRE trailer and I wanted to believe. I did. The first reviews started coming in like a heroin drip… giving me this glazed over look of gleeful anticipation. The couple of negative reviews that first came in seemed to come from people that I would hate in the real world. People complaining about the film taking its concept seriously. Folks being upset that the film focused on characters first and dragons second. All of this was getting me more excited.

So last night when those two reviews came in… I didn’t want to hear it. I wasn’t about going to let someone plant seeds of shit in my head. I wanted to go in believing in this film, and let the flick either live up or fail on its own.

First, this movie takes itself and its premise more seriously than even Matthew Robbins’ DRAGONSLAYER. In that film, I was always a little upset by the attempts at humor. They always seemed to be trying to release the tension… make light in a dark situation. Someone was going to die, this was a town living in fear and this dragon wanted a fleshy sacrifice. Stripping the poor assistant of his clothes, balancing the egg, the goofy firework entrances… all of that just kinda pissed me off.

Here, anytime folks are trying to ‘lighten up’ something, someone comes along and reminds them of their place in the world. Their prayers are about hiding. Their lives about surviving, not moving forward. Dragons have taken over the world, and men have become ants digging tunnels into the earth to escape from the wrath. Here they study these beasts to learn how to survive. How do they reproduce, how do they eat, how is the fire made… all those questions are answered, and two philosophies are born.

Out last the bastards.

Kill the bastards.

That’s the situation. You have a community led by Christian Bale’s Quinn that has dug in deep beneath an old castle and decided to just wait it out. They have early warning systems, meager crops and bed time stories taken from media from their own youth. These folks are trying to make a go at not only living through this thing, but surviving with humanity intact. Next to Bale’s wonderful turn in EMPIRE OF THE SUN, this is my favorite work of his. It may not be as patently showy as his turn as Patrick Bateman, it is however, not as painfully one-dimensional either. This is a man that has issues going all the way back. He’s a man in pain, truly doing what he believes in. Watch his eyes as he leads the children in their night time prayer early on. Watch them the second time he does it. It is that difference in doing the same scene twice that makes him and this character so damn good. Great job Christian!

Then you have the ragtag group of Americans led by Matthew McConaughey’s Van Zan. They hunt and kill dragons, and they have a rather strong belief that they can end the madness that has swept over this world. Anybody that has ever written McConaughey off as some naked bongo playing stoner… they need to see this movie and a little film he did earlier this year called FRAILTY. Matthew is stretching out. His Van Zan is absolutely iconic. He eats his scenes up, there is an intensity that comes out of his every seethingly pissed off moment that is just pure testosterone driven anger. I’d give anything if Hayden Christensen’s Anakin can get these looks down for the next chapter of the Star Wars saga. He has moments throughout this film that just lay it on. I mean, when he crashes that party in the castle… DEAR GOD. If you don’t feel shame and utter contempt for every last person partying when he’s through… then I repeat Van Zan’s last line there, “You disgust me!” Van Zan is swinging balls against brick walls cool. I mean just an awesome character, pulled off by an actor that is ready to really explode big time. Dear God… Please cast him as John Carter of Mars. God, are you listening? Please cast him as John Carter of Mars. Thank you.

Now what type of Dragon movie is this?

Well, this is all about the characters’ points of view. The dragons drop down out of clouds, you hear them above the smoke, and from time to time they pop out… and if they do, you’re dead. They are simply a force of nature. You don’t see the great war of the dragons against man. You never see the grand cities of mankind fall. You see pictures in TIME and other magazines, but that’s because this is Christian Bale’s story.

Early on in the film he is telling the castle’s children a story from his youth as a legend to inspire. Meanwhile, the story we are told over the course of the film is a new legend about a boy who grew up afraid having to face his fears and be the man he never thought he was. It really is a simple story. A tough story. One that takes many lives and scorches the earth for generations, but it is a story about endings and new beginnings. A story of cycles of life on earth and how man will survive these cycles despite the stupidity of some men and the wrath of nature itself.

Now, THE SECRET LAB… Who the hell are you and how did you become so fucking badass? The visual effects company responsible for this film is something called… THE SECRET LAB. All I can say is that these bastards know what the hell they are doing. HOLY SHIT the effects work in this movie is awesome.

It actually reminded me of Alex Ross’ paintings in a way. That dream of reality. The attention to the way light bounces off of shoulders, the way embers bend to gusts from wings, the light coming through the membranes of a dragon’s wing while it is pulling a Chernabog upon its own night on Bald Mountain. That one extended holding Dragon hover shot as it lays waste… just ball gigglingly awesome. I mean so good it makes you want to baste in your own drool juices cool.

This isn’t a film about anything more than just being a great genre film. This is the very best DRAGON movie ever made. That isn’t faint praise, because DRAGONSLAYER is a wonderful film, but this movie owns it hands down. The acting, writing, directing, effects, music… Every single last iota of this film owns.

Tonally from beginning to end it knows exactly what movie it is and it never for a second loses track of that. There are no silly stupid annoyingly fucked up moments of distraction that makes you think for a second that this director didn’t know exactly what he was doing. This isn’t a movie about being cute. This isn’t about winking at the audience in painfully self-aware moments. This is a movie about man’s last days on earth, and how he fights to make sure they aren’t exactly that. It is an intimate character story set within a nightmare situation. This is a dragon movie that we’ve been waiting for. This is a summer movie that not only kicks ass in this summer, but would have in any of the summers that I’ve been going to summer movies. I LOVED THIS MOVIE.

And tomorrow I get to see ROAD TO PERDITION, then next week EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS and then K-19. I’m pulling for 4 in a row. Wouldn’t that be nice?