‘Reign of Fire’: Christian Bale’s preposterous dragon-slaying fantasy
Outside of his three-film stint as Batman in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, Christian Bale and action heroism have never exactly gone hand-in-hand. This mismatch dates right back to Reign of Fire, his first time taking top billing in an effects-heavy blockbuster.
It was merely the first in a string of disappointments that would fail to see Bale parlay his immense talents and formidable screen presence into broader arenas. These include Kurt Wimmer’s sci-fi shoot ’em up Equilibrium, the crushingly uninteresting Terminator Salvation and Ridley Scott’s anaemic epic Exodus: Gods and Kings, providing compelling evidence that leading the line to paint on the broadest of canvases isn’t his strongest suit.
“To be honest, I’m really quite attracted to risks. This film could be a complete bloody disaster,” was Bale’s honest assessment to The Guardian prior to the release. “All sorts of people warned me that American Psycho was a huge risk. This is far more frightening than that ever was.” It was a risk that didn’t pay off, but Reign of Fire has a lot more merits than its reputation would suggest.
Sure, it failed to turn a profit at the box office and was brushed off with a shrug of indifference by both critics and audiences at the time. Still, the movie’s thunderously early-2000s appeal and straight-faced sincerity of its cast while being surrounded by the most ludicrous goings-on imaginable gives it a kitsch charm, even if it hasn’t managed to become anointed as a full-fledged cult classic.
More than that, it is unabashed high fantasy played with such sombreness and solemnity that it becomes hilarious by default. In the post-apocalypse, dragons have risen from their collective slumber to reduce the world to ash, forcing a dwindling band of survivors to try and carve out whatever sort of existence they can.
For Bale’s fantastically named Quinn Abercromby, that means nothing more or less than keeping his community safe, which he does with the help of Gerard Butler’s Creedy. It also extends to keeping them entertained, with the elders refusing to let the youngsters in on the secret that the play being performed right in front of their very eyes is actually The Empire Strikes Back. It’s bizarre but in an endearing sort of way.
However, things take a turn for the scenery-chewing when Matthew McConaughey’s wide-eyed, frothing, and unrestrained beacon of Americanisms, Denton Van Zan, arrives on the scene. Shaving his head bald, munching on a chewed-out cigar and pitching his performance several decibels beyond acceptability while performing directly for the cheap seats, the future Academy Award winner is a riot.
Obviously, a key part of the appeal is the dragons themselves, which are so impressively rendered that no less of an authority on the subject than George R.R. Martin named them the second-best dragons that have ever been committed to celluloid. Like, ever, and this is the guy who wrote the stories that would become Game of Thrones.
Everything on-screen is treated with such seriousness that it’s clear Reign of Fire was never supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek, intentionally stupid, and profoundly silly film, but that’s the only way to watch it and get the most out of the experience. It did ‘dark and gritty’ before it was even cool, and where else would anybody find McConaughey leaping through the air and screaming like a maniac after deciding an axe to the snout is capable of slaying a hulking, fire-breathing beast with a single blow? Nowhere, that’s where.
It might be full of digitally-created dragons, but Reign of Fire also carries a Mad Max vibe through its tangible, practical sets, weather-beaten exteriors, and dirt-caked heroes trawling through a desolate land where the chances of survival are slim at best. Wisely accepting the limitations of 2002’s CGI, too, the creatures are largely obscured in darkness and shadow. However, the way in which they’re portrayed makes them fearsome forces of nature, creating an unexpectedly dread-laden undercurrent where they could realistically appear from anywhere at any time and wreak havoc.
Although suggesting the opposite of the filmmaker’s intentions is often damning a movie with faint praise, don’t take Reign of Fire seriously for so much as a second, and there’s plenty of fun to be had. It’s nowhere close to being great, and even good might be stretching the limits of credulity, but when there are 102 minutes to be killed and no intention of having the brain in anything other than ‘off’ mode, it deserves a second chance.
