- Title: Reign of Fire
- IMDb: link
Set in the then future of 2020, see it was always going to be a shit year, Reign of Fire gives us a dystopian future where dragons have been awoken by man drilling too deep into the Earth (a common warning for science fiction tales) and have burned the world to ash. In an old broken down fortress in Northumberland, Quinn Abercromby (Christian Bale) has managed to keep a community alive. Enter dragon hunters from the United States led by the obsessed Denton Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey) who offer new hope with a dangerous plan of searching out the original dragon Quinn saw as the child, the only male dragon of the species.
The storyline allows for limited settings, plenty of hazy and foggy skies, burned-out wreckage lit by fire, and twisted metal while relying on the action, acting, and the CGI dragons (who still hold up pretty well two decades later) to provide the focus for the audience.
Bale and McConaughey carry the film, with the latter in screen-eating mode for the majority of the movie. The supporting cast includes Gerard Butler, Scott Moutter, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s Alexander Siddig as members of Quinn’s community with Izabella Scorupco as the helicopter pilot in Van Zan’s crew. Most of the cast won’t make it all the way through the film with only a small handful left for the final battle against the deadliest of the dragons.
While far from great, Reign of Fire does work as your basic action flick with some pretty impressive dragons thrown in. The fire design for the dragons would later be utilized in Harry Potter and the Goble of Fire. The film had a mixed response from both critics and audiences. Although it earned back more than its budget, the film was seen as a commercial failure. Reign of Fire has been released several times on DVD and Blu-ray and is currrently available on multiple streaming platforms.
Watch the trailer