Film Review - Reign of Fire

Here's a great example of how not to make a movie.

Reign of Fire should be a hit, especially with the kids. Dragons are popular. But this piece of crap does an intro, then during the credits skips past most of the story, and spends a couple hours on a really bad ending.

A young boy visits his mother who works in a tunnel being dug underneath London. Wait a minute, we're going to let kids walk around a construction site where heavy machinery is in use? Why not just run over him with a bulldozer and get this over with?

The boy finds a glowing dragon's egg, and then the dragon itself. Next he and Mom try to escape and, of course, everyone but the boy dies. Now we jump straight to the end of the movie. The boy is grown up, and reluctantly goes off to kill the dragon. Big Yawn! Someone really torpedoed what should have been a great story.

Besides more story, what this film could have used was a good natural scientist. Nature, tries to maintain a ratio of predators to prey. But this movie ignores the idea of a ratio. The dragons eat them selves out of house and home, and when all the food is gone, they sleep until the earth re-populates.

Another gross error is the idea that there would be only one male dragon. In nature that are many males who must compete to mate. This is how nature makes a species stronger. In Reign of Fire, one male, and when he gets hungry, he'll even eat the females. No species would survive these behaviors.

What was fun was the American who showed up in England with tanks and a helicopter to kill dragons. Apparently, this was a special helicopter which never runs out of fuel and doesn't need normal helicopter maintenance. But anyway the stogie chewing American reminded me of someone I used to know who was just as crazy.

In the final analysis, this movie blows. It won't hold your disbelief in check, and you'll keep saying, "Hey, wait a minute!" every few seconds. Add to that the story that was tossed into the waste basket, and I say don't bother.

Sucks and Blows!

Film Facts

Directed by Rob Bowman

Released in 2002

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Reviewed by Mongo