Reign of Fire

2002 Buena Vista Pictures
Directed by: Rob Bowman; Written by: Gregg Chabot, Kevin Peterka, and Matt Greenberg
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Christian Bale, Izabella Scorupco, and Gerard Butler
MPAA Rating: PG-13; Running Time: 102 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 5/10

A little boy goes down to the bowels of underground London in 2002, to visit his construction engineer mother, who's working on a job. Unfortunately, that job has delved too greedily and too deep, and awakens an ancient dragon at the very moment the little boy visits. 18 years later, the dragons have taken over, reducing humanity to small remnant populations, but the dragons aren't doing great either. Apparently, they can only consume organic material after they've burned it, and with organic material running out, so are the dragons. That little boy has grown up to become a highly disciplined and haunted Christian Bale, who rules over a group of survivors with not quite an iron fist, but definitely a clinched one. In comes a haunted, warrior American with a crack team of dragon-killing soldiers, there to challenge the Bale-created status quo. That warrior is played by a Matthew McConaughey that's comedown from 1990s prestige blockbuster status and hasn't quite hit that famous career renaissance yet...meaning an experimentally unhinged McConaughey is at Reign of Fire's service. It's 2020...and it's time to kill some dragons.
I'm not sure if many will understand this statement, but I have wanted to find more enjoyment in Reign of Fire since I first saw it in the theater during the summer of 2002. On paper, it's such a zany idea, and I thought that at 102 minutes, it would be wall-to-wall entertainment. The director, Rob Bowman, not only handled some of my favorite episodes of my favorite TV show, The X-Files, but also the excellent first X-Files movie, along with the surprisingly engaging and entertaining 1993 rollerblading romp, Airborne. However, on my first and second viewings of Reign of Fire in the theater, I found the film surprisingly listless, overly grim and dragging. There were awesome parts, exciting islands in a flat and slate grey sea, but how could there not be, given the concept and the talent involved?! Unfortunately, a recent revisit of the film didn't provide any revelations. There's a reason, despite the insane concept and cast, that the film is little more than a meme over 20 years later. Reign of Fire is just not very good.
Yes, Bale and McConaughey are great. Bale, wandering the desolate landscape in a coat, seems to be trying out for the opening sequence of 2005's Batman Begins. McConaughey's performance is a fever dream. He's jacked beyond belief, eyes as wide as a colossal squid's, and he is often shouting, sometimes tearing up as he tells dragon stories that seem to have really happened to him in real life. When Bale and McConaughey are on screen together, either fighting each other or against the climactic boss dragon, there's some movie magic, particularly in that final act, where McConaughey fully channels Captain Ahab, and Bale is essentially a dragon-fighting Batman. There are some other highlights, particularly the film's unique, early 00s, nu-metal graphic design, and special effects that mostly hold up well (all the obscuring dragon smoke certainly helps). Unfortunately, a lot of the film consists of the characters wandering around a rock quarry, spouting goofy dialogue, while nothing much happens. Bowman makes the big moments pop, but unfortunately, there just aren't many of those. Thus, Reign of Fire is more a curiosity that gets "can you believe this movie exists?!" meme comments over its wild concept and cast far more often than anyone is actually watching and enjoying the entirety of its 102 minutes.