Film Reviews

Reign of Fire

• Rating:
• Director: Rob Bowman.
• Starring: Christian Bale, Matthew McConaughey, Izabella Scorupco, Gerard Butler, Scott Hames Moutter, David Kennedy, Alice Krige, Ben Thornton
• Details: US / 109 mins / (12PG).

Reign of Fire may spark a note of recognition for Irish audiences, for it was largely made in Wicklow's Ardmore studios last year. And with an estimated budget just shy of $100million, it also ranks as one of the most expensive ever made in these parts. It's just a shame that the final film isn't well, very good. A B-movie with an astronomical budget, Reign of Fire opens with a short prologue where we meet Quinn (Ben Thornton). After visiting his engineer mother at her on site work place, Quinn inadvertently wakes a huge dragon, who runs amok, killing the boy's mother in the process. Cut to years later, and we learn dragons have taken over the entire world, and since nuclear weapons failed to halt them, much of the earth is a post apocalyptic wasteland. It's in one of the few remaining outposts that Quinn (now played by a buffed up Bale) lives. But when a renegade group of American marines, led by McConaughey's Van Zan, turn up, Quinn fears for the future of his people. After a relatively bright opening, Reign of Fire rapidly runs out of ideas, coming across as a feature length episode of The Outer Limits by way of Mad Max. Save for one inspired gag, there's precious little humour and one feels that the film would have been a far more successful enterprise had those involved not taken it (and themselves) so seriously

Review by Garreth Murphy