Independent Films, Film Profiles

Reign of Fire (film)

Reign of Fire is a 2002 action/science fiction film directed by Rob Bowman and starring Christian Bale, Matthew McConaughey, Izabella Scorupco, and Gerard Butler. It takes place in the year 2020 in England, after dragons have reawakened. The film grossed about $82 million on a $60 million budget[1].During Underground construction in London around the year 2008, a huge, hibernating dragon is discovered and springs to life, instantly incinerating all construction workers with its fiery breath. The only survivor is 12-year-old Quinn Abercromby, whose mother (Alice Krige) was chief of the construction crew that he was visiting after school. The dragon escapes, and soon thousands of them work their way across Europe and eventually the rest of the world, burning everything and multiplying at an exponential rate.Brief newspaper and TV news accounts reveal that among other things, Paris was burned by the dragons but terrorists were initially suspected, an attack in Kenya kills dozens of people, paleontologists discover dragon fossils in Antarctica during Arctic heating, scientists prove the dragons are a separate species that coexisted with the dinosaurs, and who were responsible for the dinosaurs' extinction. Scientists infer that when the dragons began to starve, they went into hibernation until the Earth could replenish itself. The United Nations calls an emergency session after a large dragon nest is discovered in Pakistan. By late 2010 (as the news accounts also reveal), the world powers begin to use Nuclear weapons which only hastens the destruction of the planet, and soon all semblance of organized government and society falls apart, save for small communities of survivors.Twelve years later, in 2020, the adult Quinn (played by Christian Bale) leads a small community of survivors living in a medieval stone castle in Northumberland. Their hope is to outlast the dragons, wait until they die out again (as they presumably did several times before) and go into hibernation. Unfortunately, the people are beginning to starve while waiting for their crops to ripen. Eddie Stax (David Kennedy) and his children attempt to leave the castle for food, but they actually lure a dragon to them. One of Eddie's children's friends, and one of his children, are killed by the dragon, and most of the crops are burned.Days later, a team of American volunteers arrive, led by Denton Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey) and bringing an Abrams tank and an Agusta A109 helicopter, piloted by Alex (Izabella Scorupco). Van Zan and his heavily armed band of 200 soldiers have devised an elaborate tracking system to hunt and kill dragons. Mistrusting, but needing each other, Quinn and Van Zan work together and kill the dragon that destroyed the crop. The inhabitants of the castle celebrate the victory, only to be chastised by Van Zan, who is disgusted by their behaviour, having lost three of his men in the battle.Afterwards Van Zan and Alex tell Quinn that all dragons his unit have encountered so far are female. Their hypothesis is that there is only one male worldwide. Alex was said to have discovered this two years before, while working out how they breathe fire (Apparently, and provingly, the dragons secrete two separate chemicals in glands in their mouth, and then emit a flammable gas which sparks a giant explosion). Van Zan orders his soldiers to pick the best of Quinn's men at the castle, pressing them into service in Van Zan's band. This enrages Quinn and he engages Van Zan in a fight; however, Van Zan is a battle-tempered and hardened soldier and he begins to beat Quinn mercilessly until others run to pull him off of Quinn. Made to look weak in front of his community, Quinn becomes angry and shouts at everyone that are now willingly joining Van Zan that the dragon will follow them and then backtrack their trail to find out where they came from. He warns that the castle will be destroyed if this happens. Also Quinn is frightened because he has seen the male dragon before: it was the one that killed his mother and all of the construction workers at the beginning of the movie.Van Zan and his unit go to London to find the single male dragon and discover a road block. Van Zan then sends Alex to find a new way around. The male dragon soon arrives and incinerates nearly the entire number of Van Zan's soldiers, save for Alex, Van Zan, and a wounded soldier. Van Zan realizes the mistake he made in trying to engage the dragon, as it had killed almost everyone in his unit within a few minutes then was gone. Quinn's warning is realized, as the male dragon follows their route back to the castle and destroys it. The castle inhabitants are however saved by hiding in an underground shelter that is designed to survive the intense heat, but Quinn's close friend, Creedy (Gerard Butler), is killed at the last moment as he tries to go save more people in the castle.Defeated, Van Zan returns to the castle, rescuing Quinn and the surviving children from the castle's shelter. Quinn tells Van Zan that they and Alex will hunt the male dragon in London. They use the helicopter to follow the River Thames to the city, unnoticed, where they see that the dragons are beginning to starve and are resorting to cannibalism. Van Zan's plan is to fire an explosive charge, placed on a crossbow bolt, into the dragon's mouth during the brief moment it inhales, drawing air to produce fire. During the battle, Van Zan is unable to destroy the dragon using his crossbow and attacks the dragon with no more than his battle-axe in a head-on leap. He is killed when the dragon swallows him in mid-air. Quinn and Alex are able to lure the dragon to street level and Quinn destroys it with his own crossbow.At least three months after the male dragon is slain, Quinn and Alex are seen erecting a radio tower and receive a transmission from another group of survivors in France. The sun is shining brightly and it is implied that there have been no dragon sightings for quite some time. The now hopeful Quinn resolutely dedicates himself to rebuilding civilization, undaunted by the remote possibility of the dragons returning, stating, "They'll burn, and we'll build."