REIGN OF FIRE 2002
42%
Directed by Rob Bowman
Written by Kevin Peterka, Gregg Chabot, Matt Greenberg
Starring Christian Bale, Matthew McConaughey, Izabella Scorupco, Gerard Butler
Synopsis
A child awakens an ancient terror beneath the streets of London, setting off an apocalypse of dragon fire. Years later, the boy has grown to become the leader of a pocket of humanity, huddled in a remote, ruined castle. Then the gung-ho Americans arrive and all hell breaks loose—again.
Why We Love It
Reign of Fire brought a long cinematic history of dragons on film into the twenty-first century. Director Rob Bowman’s film fully introduces the scaly pests to contemporary Western society as a biblical-sized world-killing plague of giant flying serpents. It answered the question: What if dragons were real and here, right now?
Everyone loves an outsized villain, and Reign of Fire more than delivers with its airborne menace. In an awesome first scene, the awakening dragon fills a drill site with hellfire and crushes a construction elevator, killing Alice Krige (as Karen Abercromby) as it escapes. It’s a sit-the-bleep-up-and-pay-attention move—and you obey the command.
Bowman, a veteran of sci-fi TV hits Star Trek: The Next Generation and The X-Files, also directed or codirected critical disappointments like the 1998 X-Files film and 2005 Marvel superhero super-bomb Elektra. Reign of Fire fits squarely in his sci-fi/fantasy wheelhouse but falls below the director’s median Tomatometer score for feature films. And yet, it’s probably his most thrilling—and certainly his most memorable—big-screen work.
In front of the camera, the movie feels like the perfect storm of talent at wildly different points in their careers. At the time of the film’s release, star Christian Bale was riding a career uptick toward Batman Begins, while for costar Matthew McConaughey, this dragon tale would see the beginning of a string of Rotten films, including How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Sahara, and Failure to Launch, that would pre-date his famed McConaissance. Also, remember pre-300, when Gerard Butler wasn’t really a thing? When he starred as the head bloodsucker in charge in—speaking of dumb, Rotten fun—Dracula 2000? Starry-eyed Butler is a different creature entirely in these Rotten romps compared to his 300-and-on period, and in Reign of Fire, he completes the film’s holy trinity of male hotness.
From Bale’s sweaty, shirtless-mining scene and a sweet Star Wars stage play in the first fifteen minutes through to McConaughey’s climactic sacrifice, Reign of Fire is a testosterone-fueled, fire-breathing thrill ride—right down the dragon’s throat.