'Reign of fire' will probably go up in smoke

By Jack Garner
Gannett News Service

REIGN OF FIRE (Rated PG-13 with intense violence) Two Stars (Fair) A post-apocalyptic tale of a world ruled by fire-breathing dragons, created with impressive effects but not much logic. Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey co-star for director Rob Bowman. Touchstone, 100 mins.

In fact, by 2020, there's very little left of the civilized world. The few remnants of humanity have been driven into a primordial existence in caves. Dragons now rule the world, feasting on the barbecued ashes of any living creatures they come upon.

Among the survivors is Quinn (Christian Bale), the leader of a handful of humans in hiding in the hills of Scotland. Quinn has a vested interest in the dragons — as a young boy in London in 2002, he first unleashed the terror when he came upon the dragons' underground lair.

Quinn's philosophy is to try to out-wait the dragons, to stay hidden underground as long as possible. But Quinn's world is upset when a gang of gung-ho American ruffians arrives at the camp.

They're led by the bald-headed, cigar-chomping Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey), a tattooed warrior doing a Bruce Willis imitation who believes you can only defeat the dragons through combat.

Thus, "Reign of Fire" becomes a Hollywood combo platter, part "Dragonslayer" and part "Road Warrior" and not as good as either.

Under the direction of Rob Bowman, "Reign of Fire" requires too much suspension of disbelief.

Despite a bevy of exciting special effects and lots of swooping, fire-breathing dragons, you may find yourself puzzling over the improbabilities in the film's post-apocalyptic world.

As Van Zan and his troops go into combat, they drive tanks and fly a helicopter, but where did they get the gasoline?

For that matter, what's powering the lights and appliances in Quinn's Scottish cave?

And then there's the theory that there's only one male dragon. All the others are supposedly female. (The theory holds that the male fertilizes all the female's eggs in the style of fish.) If they kill the male, supposedly, the problem is over. But nobody asks this key question: How many of those thousands of fertilized eggs will grow up as male?

If you find yourself mulling over such nonsense during a film, it's a sure sign the movie isn't working. If it grabs you with its action and puts you under a fantasy spell, maybe you wouldn't worry about the availability of gasoline.

But that's not the case.

Still, the dragons are impressive, computer-generated creatures and the attack scenes are thrilling. But they're probably not enough to light most moviegoers' fire.

Rated PG-13, with intense violence.