Stars: Christian Bale, Matthew McConaughey, Izabella Scorupco, David Kennedy, Gerard Butler, Alexander Siddig

Director: Rob Bowman

Summary: Set in the year 2018, the world has almost been destroyed by fire breathing dragons. A small group of survivors set out to find and destroy the only male dragon, thus ensuring the downfall of the species...

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Not quite the large-scale epic it promised to be, Reign of Fireis still an enjoyable entry in the post-catastrophe genre. It opens in present-day London with a boy witnessing the rebirth of the race of dragons, who are supposed to have wiped out the dinosaurs and now devastate the world again. Skipping the collapse of society with a montage of magazine articles about the world in flames, we jump into the future where the remnants of humanity cower in enclaves and fire-breathing raggedy-winged bat-lizards prowl the land. Christian Bale commands a castle in Northumberland, trying to preserve humanity, while Matthew McConaughey is an iron man warrior intent on tracking down and destroying the dragon king, making for a hero-against-hero clash of values which, for a change, finds the British preserver of life, rather than the Yankee animal-killer, getting the girl and the glory.

The film consists mostly of scrabbling about in the ruins, and it rather skimps on the big dragon battles the script seems to demand. There's little here that hasn't been done before in The Day of the Triffidson television or that slew of Italian Mad Maximitations of the early 1980s. But director Rob Bowman (The X-Files) and a good cast handle themselves well, and the few times that the dragons do show up they deliver an acceptable burst of fiery horror. --Kim Newman

On the DVD:Reign of Firehas a fairly perfunctory set of additional features on disc. A brief (under 10 minutes) making-of documentary consists mainly of computer geek animators obsessing about CG effects; back in the real world, "If You Can't Stand the Heat" looks at the on-set pyrotechnics. Director Rob Bowman chats affably about the project in a separate interview. Trailers for the movie and video game form the balance. The subdued (ie. gloomy) colours come up well in the anamorphic widescreen print, and the evocative soundscape is suitably full of sub-woofer-friendly rumblings, thuddings and explosions. --Mark Walker

Aspect Ratio:	2.35 Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Subtitles:	Bulgarian, Dutch, English
Year:	2002
Release Date:	January 20, 2003
Runtime:	105 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	D 888665
Label:	Spyglass Entertainment
Keywords:	Fire, General, Wide, Screen, Fiction, Science, Horror, Reign, Sci, Fi
Genre:	Horror/Occult