Posted: 07/13/02
Reign Of Fire (2002)
by Joe Steiff
McConaughey and Bale battle fire-breathing dragons in a film Joe calls a marriage of Mad Max with Dragonslayer...in a good way.
No, any fear here is reserved for the characters facing a ruthless flock (herd? Gaggle?) of fire-breathing dragons awakened from a long hibernation when a construction crew disturbs their resting-place deep underneath London. Spawning like fish, the dragons rapidly take over the earth in an apocalyptic battle between species, with humans on the short end of the stick. Other than the opening prologue, most of the film takes place in a future where the battle seems to be already won, except for the fact that the dragons have pretty much depleted their food supply and are growing weaker.
Quinn Abercromby (Christian Bale looking like he has stepped off the pages of a slightly grungier version of that infamous catalogue) is simply trying to hold out. Sheltering a rag-tag group of Scots, English and Irish children and young adults, he has forged out a meager existence that owes stylistically to medieval and "dead tech" traditions. Mad Max never looked so good.
Far from paradise, the community is slowly fraying, any dissension growing among the ranks brought to a head with the arrival of an American combat unit led by Denton Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey). Their arrival is a mix of menace and hope, for Van Zan claims to be able to kill dragons. "Holding out" no longer seems enough. Van Zan has taken the offensive and is looking for new blood (in more ways than one).
This is primarily a man's world. Quinn's emotional attachments are with best friend Creedy (Gerard Butler) and a teenaged boy he took in years before (Scott Moutter's Jared), Their relationships imply a gentleness, intimacy and ease only common among men in European films. Van Zan serves as the American (film) counterpoint - suppressing his emotions, only letting them leak out when alone or with his female comrades. His arrival creates a ripple in this European family for a variety of reasons, 
not the least of which being helicopter pilot Alex. Despite the masculine name, Alex is a woman (Swedish pop star Izabella Scorupco). Her loyalty to Van Zan seems at odds to an evident tenderness towards Quinn, and as you might expect, the fate of the world will rest with these three people and the new (but uneasy) alliance they will forge.
Along the way, there is plenty of suspense and fun. Reign Of Fire is thrilling, and any holes in the plot are not nearly as distracting as you might be lead to believe. The film does have the challenge of relaying a lot of backstory rapidly, which it does fairly efficiently -- and I give the filmmaker/writers credit for trying to do that with some style. The film moves along briskly, and though the final battle in London seems rather quick, it's satisfying.
A much smoother and cohesive marriage of styles than most recent mixed genre films, Reign Of Fire has all the earmarks of a film that will grow in estimation over the years, inspiring a loyal fan base. The cinematography creates a world of ash -- gray-blue, ironically cold visuals. England (the film was actually shot in Ireland) provides a futuristic landscape at once barren and dense. The special effects are weakest in the scenes were our leads are being blown by fire, best in the flying sequences of the dragons and dragon slayers. There is something incredibly haunting in the juxtaposition of these ancient mythological creatures and the ruins of modern day England.
Both McConaughey and Bale benefit from being scruffed up a bit. The plastic quality of many of the previous images of their bodies disappears in this film along with McConaughey's hair (his head is shaved ala Woody Harrelson). And for a pop star, Izabella Scorupco could teach many an American wannabe that it is possible to be a talented actor as well as singer.
Reign Of Fire is filled with inside jokes and references to other films, some overt (Star Wars, Aliens, Beyond Thunderdome) and some less obvious (American Psycho, Sliders, Star Trek: First Contact, Wolfen, Pitch Black). That's not to say these references bring levity to the film, rather they simply assure its placement in pop culture.
If you're looking for deeper meanings, there are some interesting parallels, ironies and "returns" in the story. Though by American (and Van Zan's) standards Quinn seems the weaker man, he is proven right at almost every turn. The fact that he has to face the male dragon at the end completes the circle of his being the first to see it in the film's prologue. The inability of the dragons to conserve, ferociously exhausting all of their natural resources (okay, so their resources are humans, but still...) until they are weak and begin feeding on themselves certainly parallels a number of aspects of human greed and unwillingness to embrace conservation. Just as interesting though is that this Donner Party/Alive kind of future is the very same facing the humans, and both species are near-starved and desperate when our story begins. Some reviewers have read into the film subtexts of terrorism, US/British alliances and the like, but this story was in place before those particular current events, so I'm a bit skeptical of these interpretations being a sign of intention, though signs of resonance is a distinct possibility. But if we're going to read the film at that level, then we have to take a careful look at the portrayal of the lead American (Van Zan) in this film -- arrogant, ultra-violent and quite possibly psychotic.
Reign Of Fire is one of the smarter updates of the kinds of movies imported from Japan years ago -- ancient monsters awakened to wreck havoc on the modern world. It creates a different kind of hero than we're used to seeing -- someone who would make as good a father as warrior, as smart a leader as fighter. Though perhaps not a great film, it did keep my pulse racing and left me satisfied. A summer treat!
Joe Steiff watches films and, uh, hmmm, uh, well, let's just leave it at that.
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