Good movie but grossly overrated

Don't listen to the negative reviews

best movie i've ever seen.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

I was enticed into this movie by its premise of "Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey fight dragons," a premise that the movie mildly delivers on, but I still ended up hating it by the end. Before writing this, I browsed through some of the other reviews to see what others were saying, with plenty calling this an disregarded classic and some noting the nitpick criticisms of others like tank fuel and well-fed children. I'm sorry to be raining on your collective parades-if you like a movie, you like a movie-but my criticisms also stretch a lot further beyond small plot holes. One point for me is the movie hypes itself up too much over things that it thinks are really cool, but are either actually really dumb or subverted in the end. There's no better scene exemplifying this than the first scene we see McConaughey arrive at Bale's settlement, when they show these soldiers standing by a helicopter, looking mean. A character points out to another that they have an average life span of seventeen seconds and their tasked with jumping out of the helicopter to throw a net behind them to bring down a dragon. Sure, desperate times call for desperate measures, but the way the character, and by proxy the movie, talk about these guys, it's like they're supposed to be really cool and admired for that. Why would you ever brag about having an average lifespan of seventeen seconds? it doesn't sound epic or brave, it sounds suicidal when you put it like that. That's how this movie's approach to "coolness" feels; either plain stupid or poorly executed.But that's not as bad to me as the clichéd, unlikable characters. Now I understand the movie took a more serious approach than most would take with this concept, going for a more grim depiction of a post- apocalypse brought on by dragons, but the characters focused on here are both predictable and illogical at the same time. Bale and McConaughey's characters are at odds with each other almost the entire movie, with the movie painting Bale as the sympathetic hero-type, and McConaughey as the ignorant soldier. The issues for each character are Bale is always, always right, yet refuses any credit and is always fought against, and McConaughey acts overtly alpha with others while bemoaning them for his own mistakes. Sure I can see some realism in these character traits, but they're hardly compelling and only make these characters feel punchable.And yet none of that would really matter if this movie felt nearly as exciting as promised, but it all feels so bland. The CGI and other effects are well-done for the time, but the overall imagery felt uninspired, with everything being some shade of brown and rubble, and all the characters wearing the usual tattered clothes of any post-apocalypse. I know not every post-apocalyptic movie can be The Road Warrior. It could still have tried something different from the usual with its imagery, something to maybe make it more memorable. The action bored me too, even as a b-movie or a "turn your brain off" deal, it couldn't keep me interested. The movie at least feels like a quick sitting, but that certainly doesn't help it be more interesting.I know there are certainly worse movies out there, ones more deserving of bile and criticism, but those movies also have that much going for them. Reign of Fire sits in this spot for me where it's not a great movie, but it's not an awful movie either; it's this level-headed bad quality that's unexciting to talk or think about, which is so much worse.

This film is great, I have watched numerous times and it is always good value.What is so good is seeing the emergence of Christian Bale (pre Batman) as being able to hold and command a leading role. He had done so previously but this was his first action role and this then leads on to his future.However, it is Matthew McConaughey who commands and elicits most interest in the film. I really do believe that it is this film that began his renaissance. It proved he could act and could also do gritty roles.This is a seminal film for both actors, great work and good for their future prospects.

Young Quinn Abercromby follows his mother supervising work underground on the subway and encounters dragons. His mother is killed. The dragons spread laying waste to the world. Governments helped the destruction by launching a nuclear war. In 2020, Quinn (Christian Bale) leads a group of survivors trying to wait out the dragons in a castle in Northumberland. Then a group of Americans led by Denton Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey) show up with a plan to end the nightmare. Quinn is reluctant to let his people fight and even more reluctant to face the origin of the dragon threat.This is a lot fiery dark loud ashen angry action. The singular tone does get monotonous. There isn't any ability to lighten up before diving back into the deep end of the fire pit. The logic of the world is also a bit questionable. It is questionable that the world military couldn't stop the dragons but this ragtag group could. Van Zan doesn't have a magic gun. Both Bale and McConaughey are going rough in this movie. It's a bit too much of the same tone. The best thing about this movie is that they are fighting dragons in the modern world. I'd watch this simply for that.

There is no need to be nice to movies like Reign of Fire and praise "great performance" or "fun factor". The only extraordinary thing about it was that it showed dragons "en masse" at a time when they were reserved for Harry Potter movies. The rest is a straightforward post-apocalyptic action-fiction, so if you're into it, this is a movie for you.If not, you'd be left with a premise which might have been copied from a comic book. And maybe it had been, i haven't done my research. Anyhow, the dragons had been lurking in London subway for centuries, if not millennia, before they got accidentally unleashed upon mankind. I think this plot outline gives you a clear picture of what awaits inside.