Review By Paul Mount, 3 out of 5 Rob Bowman’s apocalyptic monster movie, which failed to set the Box office alight last year (ho ho) finally arrives on DVD and if you’ve got a few quid to spare and absolutely nothing better to spend it on, you could do worse than pick up REIGN OF FIRE to enliven a boring summer’s evening.
REIGN OF FIRE isn’t a bad movie it’s just a bit of a dull one. Clearly under-budgeted, it could have done with a bit more money and a lot more dragons. The story’s intriguing enough; long-dormant dragons are reawoken from their centuries of slumber and set about wreaking (off-screen) havoc on humanity. Twenty-odd years later the survivors are huddling in the ruins of society hiding from the rampaging dragons who, for some curious and highly unlikely reason, thrive on the ashes of the things they’ve burnt to a crisp. A few grubby British survivors are joined by a swanky American named Van Zan (McConaughey) and his band of countrymen and the two groups team up to rid the land of the beasties. Er?hat’s about it really. Grey and drab and largely lifeless, the film manages to spark some interest (ha ha) when the rebels arrive in London and we finally get to see the dragons in some number, if only briefly. Mankind triumphs, everyone lives happily ever after (except the dragons). Watchable but should have been so much better.
THE DISC; It’s a grey film so the picture won’t fire up your TV (hee hee) and there’s few dull extras consisting of some light featurettes and director Rob Bowman pontificating about his glorified B-movie.
