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Reign of Fire 5/10

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So going into this movie I was very skeptical, and perhaps even swayed already that this wasn't going to be a very good movie because of the bad reviews I read. I like Christian Bale, however that doesn't really matter if I don't care about his character (which I didn't). The story goes something like this. It is post apocalypse England in the year 2020 or something. Dragons have been sleeping under the earth for a long time waiting for it to replenish itself so they can eat tons of folks. Apparently they come out and feed every few thousand years or something. Anyway, they come out and destroy everything and a little band of Brits survive. Then they meet this super had core American group (and there is a somewhat lame line like "oh, there is only one thing worse then dragons and that is Americans" and I wondered if that was supposed to be funny or something else) that kills things. Tons of folks die and the little group succeeds in killing the big evil dragon and it is all happy.

Good things. I thought the set design, cinematography, and graphics were good even though many critics didn't think so. The story had a very interesting setting and that really made it a better movie then other end-of-the-world ones like "Day After Tomorrow" or "Children of Men." And I really liked the scene in which they jump from a helicopter to try and snare the dragon in a net - that was pretty amazing.

Bad things. The acting wasn't weak, it was just the fact that the script was and the actors didn't really have much to go off of. I honestly didn't care about any of the characters (except the kids). I just never felt I got to know them. Everyone was always running around getting burned or trying to fight a dragon. There was no character. The music never really developed and for me dragons = good music. "How To Train Your Dragon" understands this essential point as well as story.

So, 5 out of 10. Not a horrible movie, just one I probably will never see again. Nothing too deep that I could wrench out of it however it had its exciting moments and interesting concepts.

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