Rating: 
Summary: GIVE IT A CHANCE!
Review: I cant believe the reviews this movie has on this page! I saw it in theaters and own the dvd. I love the acting,the special effects and story. The reason why the dragons are not shown in every frame is they had a medium sized budget.Even so they look fantastic,and you never spot one bad shot of them.Matthew mcconaughey steals the show as the meanest dragon slayer on earth.If you love b movies that look and feel like first class pictures you will love this furious ride.
Rating: 
Summary: Curse of the Dragon
Review: Has anyone noticed that there's a curse with dragons in movies? Every movie that's had a dragon in it has bombed. DRAGONSLAYER, DRAGON HEART, DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS... Now add REIGN OF FIRE to the list even though someone cleverly left the word "Dragon" out of the title.Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey star in this ROAD WARRIOR meets DRAGON SLAYER meets ALIENS movie directed by X-FILES director, Rob Bowman. What should have been a smart sci-fi fantasy movie ends up lost in the dragon movie curse - too much money spent on SPFX - not enough on the script where biology and logic have been thrown out the window to accommodate action movie formula. There are lots of problems with scale and with the supposed biology of the dragons - to say anymore would be to give away the movie's weak ending. McConaughey is a lot of fun as the skinhead American dragonslayer with a Marine bad attitude. Covered with tattoos and looking very buff, he's like a cartoon superhero a little on the crazy side - he should have played Wolverwine in the X-MEN! Bale, on the other hand, is unrecognizable in a beard - actually he looks more like John Lindh Walker of the Taliban! Too bad so does every other survivor in his castle. Bale, who used to be 'the next big thing', seems happy now just grimacing and looking pissed off. (Word to Bale - see what happened to fellow Brit Julian Sands). And did I say curse of the dragon? With Bale's abysmal box office track record (Newsies, Swing Kids, Corelli's Mandolin and most recently, Equilibrium), perhaps throwing him in a dragon movie was just the last nail in the coffin! The movie didn't stand a chance. Rent a Mad Max movie or ALIENS instead!
Rating:
Summary: Dragons Rule!
Review: I love mankind. I love dragons. I love well-told apocalyptic stories. So where do I go for entertainment? To Reign of Fire, of course! On the DVD the short about making the film was almost more fun than the movie itself. Human beings are a special breed of animal but we are basically helpless without our tools and gadgets and intellect. And sometimes we awaken forces that ought not be disturbed. I enjoy watching mankind being taken down a peg because it has always been adversity that shows us at our best. The rule is simple: get lazy, get fat, get eaten. Makes sense to me. The characterizations are a bit muddy, having been sacrificed to the action; but that's ok because the action is spectacular. And there are surprises and tongue-in-cheek fun around every pile of rock. Don't watch this movie to learn anything. Ignore most of the dialogue and macho male posturing; just enjoy watching a bunch of humans devise a plan to save the earth, again. Oh yeah, and remember that it pays to "call before you dig"!
Rating: 
Summary: Not a Bad Little Dragon Movie...
Review: Well, Matthew McConaghey is definitely a bad ... in this one.....I didn't think he could pull it off at first but I think it worked well. Reign of Fire is a solid action-fantasy film. What it lacks in story development and dialogue it makes up for in action and imagery. Similar to the Alien films, it deals with a disgusting monster who ravages humans until their extinction. Think if the 'Aliens' had gotten to earth.....that's kinda the storyline here. Another bright spot is Christian Bale, of course, as the now 'grown up kid' who first discovered the 'main' dragon deep within a mine shaft. Although the story could use a beefed up script (James Cameron could've helped) the film survives as a fun entertaining romp in the not so distant earthly future. ***1/2 stars (out of five). Check it out!
Rating:
Summary: It fizzled....
Review: I had high hopes for this movie when I intially saw the trailer. After seeing it, I thought "What a waste". So much potential, with so little payoff. The dragons looked great, and I thought the actors were pretty good, but the story seemed to not really go anywhere. Halfway into the movie, I found myself looking at the clock, instead of the screen, trying to figure out how much time was left. Visually stimulating, but unable to keep me interested throughout. By the end, I found myself rooting for the dragons to eat everyone and the movie to be over.
Apparently, during some deep tunneling, man has woken some long dormant dragons, and a few years into the future, the dragons have become the dominant species on the planet. With a few surviving groups of humans, they decide to try to work together to try and overcome the dragons, looking for a weakness to exploit in the dragons and save the human race from the brink of extinction. Seems like a pretty good idea, but it just didn't play out all that well. If you're really interested, go and rent it, or wait for it on cable before buying.
Rating:
Summary: Pity - average movie based on a very good premise
Review: When I found out what "Reign of fire" was about, I thought: there's a great idea. After watching the movie, I thought: there's a great idea, misused. Imagine a race of dragons that have been asleep for the past several millions of years, a race of dragons that is responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs, a race of dragons that is inadvertently awaken in 2010 by a tunnel excavation. Suddenly, Earth has millions of dragons flying over its surface, destroying everything (including human race) to eat the remaining ashes. That's the problem: it's too sudden. "Reign of fire" goes from the discovery of the sleeping dragon under London immediately to ten years after, 2020, when the remaining of humans are living in very distant (from each other) castle-like strongholds, and all their efforts are sumarized in trying to live as long as they can. The destruction of Earth is kind of "thrown in" in the movie in the form of magazines covers and newspapers lines, using no more than 60 seconds. This is a let down, since in my opinion it should be in itself a great plot for a movie, but "Reign of fire" just jumps ahead ten years in the future. Christian Bale is Quinn, the kid who discovered the first dragon, now living as a chief of one of the strongholds. Suddenly (everything is sudden in the movie), an outcast army of kentuckians lead by Van Zan (the bald Matthew MacConnaughey) arrives in England with new dragon-fisiological discoveries that may be able to help destroying the winged beasts (this is a very weak part of the script also - the discoveries about dragon reproduction). This is the kind of movie that has a bad scrip based on a terrific idea (yes, a terrific idea, even if it's impossible: remember, movies are meant to be entertainment). Not even good actors such as Bale and MacConnaughey are able to save "Reign of fire" from failure (not a tremendous failure, but failure indeed if you think about what it could have been). The best part of the movie is the computer-created dragons, very realistic and evil faced. Also, it was a very good idea to make the new Earth visually resemble the Middle Ages, as far as I know the cradle of dragon stories. Grade 6.8/10
Rating:
Summary: The New "B" Picture.
Review: I wish we could still go to the movies and watch one or two "B" pictures before seeing the main feature. Going to the cinema would be a lot more enjoyable then. It would also mean that movies like REIGN OF FIRE would get a fair shake. REIGN OF FIRE is an extended "B" picture. Pure and simple. The movie isn't a superdriven "A" film intended to bring in lots and lots of cash (though that would have been nice). No, the picture was made as a throwback to the types of action shorts that used to be shown before the main picture. However, instead of swashbucklers, pirates, and Flash Gordon; we are presented with the tail of dragonslayers living in a world after nuclear destruction where dragons rule the Earth. Sure the plot is thin, the dialogue cheesy, and the scenery corny. That's what B pictures look like. If you don't believe that, watch the film and play close attention. This is best illustrated in one of my favorite scenes in the movie. The two leaders of a band of humans living in rural England not too far from London entertain the children of the castle by acting out a story. The story they act out is from STAR WARS. STAR WARS! Get it? The movie is filled with such whimsical devices and if one pays attention to them, one gains an appreciation for what REIGN OF FIRE truly is: a modern day "B" picture; a movie great for watching before an "A" picture such as RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. However, if nothing else, the movie is worth watching for the dragons. True they are few and far between, but they are lifelike and rather menacing.
Rating:
Summary: REIGN OF BURN
Review: Talk about major disppointments and wasted potential! Here we have a very interesting (and promising) opening scene where a dragon is accidentally unearthed in an underground London excavation site and escapes. THEN, the director (for whatever...reasons) immediately segues into a brief newspaper montage, describing how more dragons have emerged and eventually annhiliated most of the world.THEN, it's twenty years later. WHAT? COME AGAIN? Let's rewind a moment, and allow me to ask a really dumb question: HOW COME THAT WASN'T THE STORY? It doesn't sound too dull to me. That's what those deceptive posters and trailers conveyed. Why didn't this tepid production have the guts to stick to its guns?When it jumps twenty years ahead, it then becomes like a cable series; that medicore kind where the pilot episode seems highly promising, but only to go downward from there. At this droll point, everything worth seeing has already happened. Party's over, you can go home now. How's that for true excitement?I was all geared up to want to know what happened right after the first one escaped and how all the others came to be. It would have also been compelling to have crucial scenes where the scientists come to discover that the dragons were responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs and the start of the ice age. (Imagine surreal flashbacks that actually SHOW THIS, instead of just 'mentioning it in passing'). Thus, the film would be more than just two hours of dragon breath and barbequed mankind. I would have also been very curious to SEE how the human race fought them - and lost (as chillingly depicted in that TIME mag cover of NYC in flaming ruins with those ominous words: THE END?). That was the suspenseful and terrifying film I wanted to see, instead of this dismal effort which only boasts fleeting moments of action. Also, WHERE WERE THE DRAGONS? All I saw were what appeared to be birds in the distance; nothing too threatening or scary about that. Obviously, we now live in the disconcerting cinematic age of the LOST OPPORTUNITY. Isn't it a pity?PREQUAL, ANYONE?
Rating:
Summary: Someone Should Put This Fire Out
Review: Reign Of Fire looked like a cool action adventure film, when I saw the theatrical trailer, before it landed on movie screens. For one reason or another I never saw it as a first run flick. After getting my hands on the DVD, and finally seeing it, all I can say is: What a dud this turned out to be. A London based tunneling project unleashes a fire breathing dragon on the world that leaves death and destuction in it's wake. 2020, some 20 years after that event, most of the planet is cast in ruin. Humans are being over run by the creatures, as they found a way to procreate, and have depleted our resources. A small band of dragon hunters, led by Quinn (Christian Bale), have done their best to find a way to defeat the threat...with little success. When an unexpeted group of American hunters, led by Denton Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey) arrives, to bring the animals down, both leadership and lives hang in the balance Director Rob Bowman, known for helming episodes of X-Files and Star Trek-TNG, gets a lot of "bang for the buck". The film looks and sounds great on DVD, with its 5.1 DTS track, and solid effects. But as I have said many times, you can have the coolest effects on record, but a film still needs a good enough script and characters, to back up all the eye candy. If an action film doesn't then all is probably lost. Bale is too busy trying to make apologize for the film's weaknesses, while McConaughey is basically trying to imitate "Mad Max" and actor Vin Diesel at the same time. All of the other characters come across as rather one demensional. There's no one to root for here or care about for that matter and a film like "fire" needs that. The extras on DVD are pretty slim. There are 3 featurettes: the first deals with how the dragons came to life, next is one that concerns the pyrotechnic effects of the film, and finally there's a 15 minute "conversation" with Bowman. Rounding it all out is that theatrical trailer I talked about earlier. All in all, Reign Of Fire is all flash with little substance. If you think you must watch, do it as a rental only, and don't waste your money for a purchase.
Rating: 
Summary: I'll be generous and say one star.
Review: The plot was an excellent idea. How it was done was not near excellent. Reign of Fire seems to be more concerned with nice looking CG of dragons breathing fire on defenseless civilians than anything else. The movie is basically entirely filler; the only real thing that happened was the climactic moment at the end, which wasn't terribly exciting anyways. The lines are not atrocious, and the acting isn't badly done, but the movie has so little actual plot content that it barely deserves one star.
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