Movie Review: Reign of Fire

[ranuel]

 

Reign of Fire (2002)

I wish I had seen this in the theater; it has some of the best SGI work I've seen. At least on the small screen I couldn't tell the models from the computer generated stuff and I always catch little distortions somewhere. The set and costume design are first rate too.

Urban fantasy is my favorite sub-genre and this is a great example of it even though the director describes it as a “monster movie”. It takes a fantasy concept, in this case dragons, and presents it in a realistic way in a modern setting with a big part of the plot being how modern people would react.

The story isn't perfect; there are some awfully large plot holes. I won't go into them since they involve major spoilers. Anyway, some of them may be more obvious to a gamer than to the average person watching it. Dragons are a common hazard of the adventuring life and I've had to put a lot of thought into dealing with them from both sides of the GM screen. I will admit to a certain amount of self-satisfaction when the solution to how to defeat the dragons was one of the ones that I had worked out.

There is action for everyone, some prime beefcake on display – nice shirtless scene – and other than the language it's fine for any kid old enough not to be too traumatized by giant fire breathing lizards eating people.