This is a movie that I've been aware of for many years but never watched because of the critical and viewer reviews. Finally, early this summer of 2018, I watched it and it's become one of those movies that, no matter what part of the movie I stumble upon, it's very hard for me not to watch it, again, until the end. Yes, it's a bit farfetched, but so is The Matrix. The acting is top notch and the dragon is very well designed and presented. It's as life-like as any other "monster" in the movies. So I say disregard what you've read or heard and give it a shot. Maybe you'll totally disagree with me. But maybe you won't and you'll actually enjoy escaping from the real world and enjoy it. Only one way to know for sure...

This is an excellent dark fantasy, an adult fantasy, if you will and the acting is well up to the story. It is a good tight script and keeps a fast pace. The allegory of a post nuclear age brought on by the advent of dragons freed from a millennial dormancy, points to the problems of survival in such a world. Many of our greatest science fiction authors have speculated on this, and this film tends to bring it all together nicely.

My one complaint with this film is that it was shot so dark that it is hard to see a lot of the action. The novel idea of one male for all of the female dragons is an excellent one however. Much of the look of the dragons tends to remind one of the 1997 version of Godzilla, with the lairs of creatures underground. Christian Bale was good as Quinn, and Matthew McConaughy shines as Van Zan. Gerard Butler was wasted in the film, not because his performance was bad, by no means, but because his character needed to have more to do. Still a very watchable film.

22 October 2011. This serious piece of sci fi/fantasy work retains its grit and focus on the action thriller, no-nonsense presentation of a dragon plot device that is rather creative and takes the rest of the production from there. There are no really outrageous typical characters one might find it such movies as Mad Max (1979) and its various sequels, Cherry 2000 (1987), The Postman (1997) or Waterworld (1995). The dragons are really more like a stand in for the monstrous wild band of alien lifeforms or bacterial infections in this wasteland. Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey are archetypes that don't abuse their natures for obvious dramatic effect and even the sexual implications usually promoted in such movies is omitted. In many respects, Reign of Fire has strong similarities to the classic Alien (1979) in its retention of the primary interest in the resolution of the dire situation. In some ways, the disaster scene towards the end of the movie was even more true to from than the one in Aliens (1986).