The setup
n 2020, a post apocalyptic Earth is ruled by fire breathing dragons after they are accidentally awakened from hibernation beneath modern day London.The story follows Quinn, the leader of a desperate community of British survivors hiding out in a castle. Their fight for survival changes when Van Zan, a bombastic American military leader, arrives with a ragtag squad of high tech dragon slayers. Realising that all the beasts they are fighting are female, the two groups must unite and venture into the ash ruins of London to hunt down the only male dragon on Earth before humanity faces total extinction.
Reign of Fire is one of those films that really shouldn't work as well as it does. A post apocalyptic film where dragons have taken over the world, humanity is hiding in castles and Matthew McConaughey turns up looking like an absolute psychopath who really really wants to kill some dragons. Christian Bale is great as Quinn, but McConaughey steals the show as Van Zan. He looks like he's been preparing for the apocalypse his entire life and is completely mental when it comes to hunting dragons. The dragons themselves are brilliant too. I actually like that you don't see loads of them. They're usually hidden in the darkness or clouds, which makes the moments when you finally see them properly much more effective. There are some absolutely ridiculous moments though. The Archangels jumping out of helicopters to fight dragons is basically suicide with extra steps, and the whole idea of people spending twenty years fighting dragons before finally deciding an axe might do the job is questionable at best. And yes, the Star Wars scene is still brilliant. It's not a perfect film, but it's a film about dragons fighting tanks, and I genuinely don't understand why we haven't had more films like this. It's dark, it's ridiculous, it's entertaining and McConaughey is amazing.
NCN Score
Our final score for Reign Of Fire.
