n modern-day London, 12-year-old Quinn (Ben Thornton) descends into the bowels of the earth, where his mother (Alice Krige) works construction on a new subway. That's when the crew uncovers something unexpected.
Shining a flashlight into a cave, Quinn comes face to face with a vicious, leathery, winged creature. Panicked, he runs out to warn his mother. The creature follows, breathing flame, killing everyone in the tunnel and then climbing to the surface.
Twenty years later, Quinn is the leader of a ragtag community of survivors dwelling in the ruins of a Northumberland castle. The world has been devastated by the creatures first unleashed in that subway tunnel: thousands of fire-breathing flying dragons. Humanity has fled the decimated cities and scrabbles to survive in the countryside. It's all Quinn can do to hold his band together. Aided by his best friend, Creedy (Gerard Butler), Quinn tries to hang on in their bunkerlike existence until the dragon threat fades away. "What do you do when you see him?" Quinn asks the community's children. "Dig hard, dig deep, run for shelter, never look back," they reply.
Into this tenuous existence arrives a heavily armored platoon of soldiers, led by the driven Van Zan (McConaughey). The Americans have arrived in the English countryside with a particular mission, which they believe will deal a decisive blow to the scourge of the dragons. "Envy the country that has heroes," he says. "Pity the country that needs them."
Quinn doubts Van Zan's chances of success. He's momentarily persuaded when Van Zan successfully brings down one of the frightening creatures. But when Van Zan takes it upon himself to conscript members of the community for a perilous mission, Quinn and the American come to blows. "You're insane," Quinn says. Undaunted, Van Zan takes off, leaving the community vulnerable and Quinn to make a fateful choice that could affect the future of humankind.
Dialogue that doesn't set the world on fire
Reign of Fire is the much-anticipated film that adds a post-apocalyptic SF twist to a story of knights battling seemingly invincible dragons. And in the early part of the movie, former X-Files helmer Bowman and his team breathe fire into a very convincing Road Warrior-like world of soot and ash in which death comes swiftly from the skies.
Based on an original idea by fledgling Wisconsin writers Chabot and Peterka, and fleshed out by Greenberg (SCI FI's The Invisible Man), the film begins promisingly, with incendiary sparks of wit and sharp characters, especially 12-year-old Quinn. Asked by his mother if he's been smoking, he replies tartly, "No, I told you, I only smoke when I've been drinking." A highlight of the first act features Quinn and Creedy miming The Empire Strikes Back to an audience of children, illuminated by candlelight and backed by Byzantine mosaics. Bale is very good as the conflicted Quinn.
Bowman also brings to bear his considerable gifts for expressionistic lighting and atmosphere. The film's mood is so smoky, viewers can practically smell the cinders, and the movie nicely mixes medieval and SF images to come up with something original.
Bowman, visual effects supervisor Richard Hoover and co-supervisor Dan DeLeeuw also earn kudos for reinventing the flying creatures. Moving away from the by-now familiar CGI representations of dragons from films like Dragonheart and Shrek, the filmmakers went back to basics. Reign of Fire's dragons are serpentine and raggedy, with weight and velocity, emitting clouds of flame that billow like the breath of hell. Bowman borrows a page from Jaws by revealing the creatures slowly and from the characters' point of view, and he stages the film's set-piece battles in the air and on the ground with brutal efficiency. One of the film's treats is a helicopter-vs.-dragon aerial encounter. Bowman manages to make dragons genuinely frightening again.
Sadly, the film's rich premise and effective setup do not pay off. Things begin to go wrong when McConaughey first appears, posing, glowering and chewing the scenery as much as his reptilian nemeses. (In his defense, he's saddled with some of the more ridiculous dialogue: "I lead, you follow," he intones ominously.) By the end, the film has abandoned whatever logic it had, relegated most characters to the background, dispensed with character and morphed into an Alien-like bug hunt with a very predictable finish.
