Reign of Fire

Christian Bale is rapidly apporaching Johnny Depp status in the eyes of The Loop. Not all of his movies are great, but I have yet to see him in anything that I didn’t come out saying, “Damn, that guy is awesome!” Recently I rewatched Batman Begins, which was freakin’ sweet, but even more recently I picked up a little jewel known as Reign of Fire.

This is the tale of a Post-Apocalyptic society after an outbreak of dragons take over the world. This sounds hokey, but it is pulled off well enough. Everything is sufficiently covered in ash and dirt, and the fact that a group of people have taken a castle in England as their home makes it that much cooler, especially since they don’t really bring any attention to this fact. The story starts out with Christian Bale’s mother being killed by a dragon, which brings about that little bit of bitterness that you know will ultimately lead to said dragon’s destruction. He later grows up to lead this group of people.

The dragons were really, really realistic. I bought it. They moved, flew, and blew fire like I would imagine a dragon would do so. They even rationalized the fire breathing, and that made sense. Best dragon in a movie ever? Possibly, but I haven’t seen Goblet of Fire yet, so we’ll see, but from what I’ve seen, they’re better than GoF.

So, there they are, minding their own business in this castle, on the brink of possible starvation, when the Americans show up, led by Matthew McConaughey, in tanks and a helicopter. They are US Military, and, you guessed it, are Dragon Slayers. There are people that jump out of helicopters and shoot nets at dragons. These scenes are bad ass.

I won’t lie to you, the dialogue is not always the best. There is even a point where someone jumps the shark, except they jumped the dragon. I wish that I were just being clever here, but that’s what actually happens. It’s pretty bad.

Overall it was fun to watch, it was believable, and Christian Bale was awesome.

The scene where he and a friend recreate scenes from the Empire Strikes Back for the children of the castle that have never seen a TV, let alone Star Wars is hilarious.

Go watch it.