506. Reign Of Fire (2002)

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Christian Bale, Gerard Butler

Director: Rob Bowman

Running Time: 101 mins

Reign Of Fire is an American film, set in Northern England in the year 2020, where the last remnants of humanity hide in forts from an evil race of dragons that have invaded the planet by setting fire to everything.

Well, apparently time flies when you’re having fun. However, I wouldn’t know what that feels like, because this film was absolutely terrible! With cool CGI and an all-star cast, this should have been a whole lot better, but ended up being incredibly painful, dull and preposterous to watch.

Now, this is a fantasy, and yet I still feel it’s right to call this whole thing preposterous. Nothing in the story fits at all, and although it may seem as if it’s taking some fantastic licence with the plot, it’s the niggling details that really get to you and annoy you.

For instance, this film is all about dragons that take over the Earth in a matter of minutes by setting fire to everything. Despite that, the last humans hide in WOODEN FORTS, and manage to survive, when surely it would be incredibly easy for a fire-breathing dragon to fly over, incinerate the fort, and thankfully end this film earlier.

However, you don’t get any attempt in this film to be at all convincing. By the end, it becomes so confident in its supposed fantasy brilliance, that you get an incredibly convoluted and messy story to finish with, where the film has no idea whether it’s trying to be an action, a fantasy, a drama, all three at the same time, or none of those three.

That’s yet another detail that makes this film painful to watch, but what is definitely the most horrible is its aggressiveness. With what are impressive special effects, this film takes everything way over the top, and fires fire right into your face for a whole hour and a half, making it seem as if this film isn’t trying to entertain nor excite you in any way, just hurt you visually.

I do have to admit that the CGI in this film is pretty cool, and the stupid dragons are actually pretty realistic. However, as I’ve said before, this comes at a cost, as the film gets so over-confident in its special effects capabilities that it completely loses any sort of intelligent story beneath the surface, ruining pretty much everything.

Not even the brilliant cast of Matthew McConaughey, Gerard Butler, and Christian Bale can save this film, and it ends up being a stupid, painfully irritating and boring film to watch, and that’s why it gets a 2.2 from me.