Thursday, March 1, 2007

Reign of Fire


Why is it that in all of these postapocalyptic motion pictures when some disaster strikes the human race, it takes all the color out of their wardrobe? I mean, ever since the "Mad Max" series started way back in 1978 (or "Planet of the Apes" before that), everyone in a future apocalyptic world wears only dark blues, browns, greys, and blacks. Are worldwide destructions selective in the clothing they destroy, leaving Mankind with only drab, dreary hues? Like its predecessors in the genre, "Reign of Fire" adheres to this cinematic tradition along with all the others we've come to know, which by now must be written in stone.

When I first heard about the film, I thought, wow, a future Earth fighting off fire-breathing dragons. I love fantasy and science fiction, and that sounded like a really nifty premise. But wouldn't you have thought that a studio about to spend over $90,000,000 on a movie would have begun with a script instead of a few special effects? Disappointment reigns supreme in 2002's "Reign of Fire."

The story begins somewhere in present-day England as a young boy goes to visit his mother, who is working on a railway tunneling operation. The crew has just broken into an underground cavern, and they ask the kid to go in through a small hole they've made and take a look. He does so and finds they've awakened a nest of flying, fire-breathing dragons that have apparently been lying dormant for millions of years, ever since they "burned the dinosaurs to dust," and now they want to make a comeback.

Flash forward almost two decades to the year 2020, and the dragons have taken over the world. They've multiplied rapidly and wiped out all our cities, the remnants of Mankind lying huddled in the ruins left behind. The boy, Quinn (Christian Bale), now grown up, is the leader of a group of survivors who are trying to hang on to their lives (shades of "The Terminator"). Enter a troop of American dragon killers led by a fellow named Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey) and a beautiful woman commando named Alex (Izabella Scorupco). The English and the Americans take an immediate dislike for one another ("The only thing worse than a dragon--Americans") but eventually unite to do battle against the creatures for the common cause of the world.

The movie fails on any number of counts. It develops no human relationships; it creates zero tension or suspense; and it establishes no believability whatsoever, leaving every logical question about its actions unanswered. In its favor the CGI dragons look good, but they are given so little screen time, we'd hardly know it.

We don't usually expect much more than to be entertained by an action sci-fi or fantasy movie, certainly not to find three-dimensional characters. But we might expect at least an attempt on the part of the filmmakers to provide us with more than stock, cardboard cutouts who can outrace fireballs. The characters in "Reign of Fire" are about as devoid of personality as the dragons they're trying to slay. They're just people thrown at us. Quinn, for example, is supposed to be the sensitive male, shown by his having taken in and raised a child left parentless by the dragon holocaust. That is about the extent of his personality development. He is mainly used as the handsome good guy we're intended to root for. Van Zan is supposed to be the tough guy. We know this because McConaughey tries to get as far away from his clean-cut, all-American image as possible, sporting tattoos, a beard, and a shaven head. He appears to be imitating Woody Harrelson in "Natural Born Killers," chewing on a cigar (and the scenery) in every shot he's in. The only interaction between the two male leads is their childish, macho rivalry, culminating in a fistfight. Then there's Alex, who is simply there, existing almost in a void. You'd expect that either she'd be a romantic interest or some kind of hero, but she's neither. About the only way to explain her presence is to say she tags along.

The movie does offer a couple of moments of excitement in its several clashes of man versus monster and its shots of a dragon-infested London toward the finale, but these moments are too few and they're diluted by too much trite dialogue and too much clichéd action in the meantime. Mostly, the movie is content with showing us sights of destruction, rubble, and debris, the vestiges of the human race barely clinging to a lost civilization. Pretty bleak stuff, done without a trace of humor (unless you find the whole film laughable) and accompanied by an equally somber musical track. The trailer makes it appear that the humans play out a deadly cat-and-mouse game with the sharp-witted, ever-alert dragons, something like "Alien" or "Predator," but not so. In only one scene does a dragon hide in the mists before pouncing, and it's a brief enough scene, at that. The film is primarily a wait-and-see affair, with little resulting payoff.

Worst of all, though, is that the film gives us little or no reason to willingly suspend our disbelief and go along with its dragon premise. The director, Rob Bowman ("The X-Files" movie), tells us elsewhere on the DVD that he tried to create a fantasy world we could easily accept, but his film didn't convince me for a moment. The best science fiction and fantasy creations do, in fact, establish a plausible universe of their own, but "Reign of Fire" doesn't even attempt such a thing. That flying, fire-breathing dragons exist at all, we are meant to accept on faith. That they can defeat the combined armies, navies, and air forces of the world, we aren't even shown; we're merely told in passing. That a single arrow with an explosive tip can kill a dragon but a dozen men with high-powered rifles (not to mention jet fighters with guided missiles) can't bring one down, we're expected to brook without objection. Swallowing any of this is a pretty far stretch for a reasonable mind.

Why is it that in all of these postapocalyptic motion pictures when some disaster strikes the human race, it takes all the color out of their wardrobe? I mean, ever since the "Mad Max" series started way back in 1978 (or "Planet of the Apes" before that), everyone in a future apocalyptic world wears only dark blues, browns, greys, and blacks. Are worldwide destructions selective in the clothing they destroy, leaving Mankind with only drab, dreary hues? Like its predecessors in the genre, "Reign of Fire" adheres to this cinematic tradition along with all the others we've come to know, which by now must be written in stone.

When I first heard about the film, I thought, wow, a future Earth fighting off fire-breathing dragons. I love fantasy and science fiction, and that sounded like a really nifty premise. But wouldn't you have thought that a studio about to spend over $90,000,000 on a movie would have begun with a script instead of a few special effects? Disappointment reigns supreme in 2002's "Reign of Fire."

The story begins somewhere in present-day England as a young boy goes to visit his mother, who is working on a railway tunneling operation. The crew has just broken into an underground cavern, and they ask the kid to go in through a small hole they've made and take a look. He does so and finds they've awakened a nest of flying, fire-breathing dragons that have apparently been lying dormant for millions of years, ever since they "burned the dinosaurs to dust," and now they want to make a comeback.

Flash forward almost two decades to the year 2020, and the dragons have taken over the world. They've multiplied rapidly and wiped out all our cities, the remnants of Mankind lying huddled in the ruins left behind. The boy, Quinn (Christian Bale), now grown up, is the leader of a group of survivors who are trying to hang on to their lives (shades of "The Terminator"). Enter a troop of American dragon killers led by a fellow named Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey) and a beautiful woman commando named Alex (Izabella Scorupco). The English and the Americans take an immediate dislike for one another ("The only thing worse than a dragon--Americans") but eventually unite to do battle against the creatures for the common cause of the world.

The movie fails on any number of counts. It develops no human relationships; it creates zero tension or suspense; and it establishes no believability whatsoever, leaving every logical question about its actions unanswered. In its favor the CGI dragons look good, but they are given so little screen time, we'd hardly know it.

We don't usually expect much more than to be entertained by an action sci-fi or fantasy movie, certainly not to find three-dimensional characters. But we might expect at least an attempt on the part of the filmmakers to provide us with more than stock, cardboard cutouts who can outrace fireballs. The characters in "Reign of Fire" are about as devoid of personality as the dragons they're trying to slay. They're just people thrown at us. Quinn, for example, is supposed to be the sensitive male, shown by his having taken in and raised a child left parentless by the dragon holocaust. That is about the extent of his personality development. He is mainly used as the handsome good guy we're intended to root for. Van Zan is supposed to be the tough guy. We know this because McConaughey tries to get as far away from his clean-cut, all-American image as possible, sporting tattoos, a beard, and a shaven head. He appears to be imitating Woody Harrelson in "Natural Born Killers," chewing on a cigar (and the scenery) in every shot he's in. The only interaction between the two male leads is their childish, macho rivalry, culminating in a fistfight. Then there's Alex, who is simply there, existing almost in a void. You'd expect that either she'd be a romantic interest or some kind of hero, but she's neither. About the only way to explain her presence is to say she tags along.

The movie does offer a couple of moments of excitement in its several clashes of man versus monster and its shots of a dragon-infested London toward the finale, but these moments are too few and they're diluted by too much trite dialogue and too much clichéd action in the meantime. Mostly, the movie is content with showing us sights of destruction, rubble, and debris, the vestiges of the human race barely clinging to a lost civilization. Pretty bleak stuff, done without a trace of humor (unless you find the whole film laughable) and accompanied by an equally somber musical track. The trailer makes it appear that the humans play out a deadly cat-and-mouse game with the sharp-witted, ever-alert dragons, something like "Alien" or "Predator," but not so. In only one scene does a dragon hide in the mists before pouncing, and it's a brief enough scene, at that. The film is primarily a wait-and-see affair, with little resulting payoff.

Worst of all, though, is that the film gives us little or no reason to willingly suspend our disbelief and go along with its dragon premise. The director, Rob Bowman ("The X-Files" movie), tells us elsewhere on the DVD that he tried to create a fantasy world we could easily accept, but his film didn't convince me for a moment. The best science fiction and fantasy creations do, in fact, establish a plausible universe of their own, but "Reign of Fire" doesn't even attempt such a thing. That flying, fire-breathing dragons exist at all, we are meant to accept on faith. That they can defeat the combined armies, navies, and air forces of the world, we aren't even shown; we're merely told in passing. That a single arrow with an explosive tip can kill a dragon but a dozen men with high-powered rifles (not to mention jet fighters with guided missiles) can't bring one down, we're expected to brook without objection. Swallowing any of this is a pretty far stretch for a reasonable mind.

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