The other night, my wife and I had nothing to do at home, so after flipping through the channel guide I asked if she wanted to watch a dumb movie. Sure. Reign of Fire was on. Now, I had never seen the movie before, but I had read about it at Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics.
It definitely lived up to its review. Stupid to the nth power. If I had have seen this movie when it came out, I would never have let my wife talk me into watching any movie with Matthew McConnahay (sic) in it. Having the image of the suave ladies man, just makes it hilarious to see him as a shave headed commando (still talking in the slight Texas drawl).
The whole idea of dragons not being able to see well at dusk and dawn sounded good, until you saw the final battle and saw that the dragon could see rather fine at dusk. And if all of your heavy weaponry didn't work, why would you even assume that a battle axe was going to do anything. (Hint: It doesn't.)
As with most stupid movies, I lost 2 hours of my life to this that will never be recovered.
Hey...I like that movie.
ReplyDeleteWhat does that say about me?
They didn't say the dragons were BLIND at dawn and dusk, just that they couldn't see as well.
If bad boy dragon had been able to see them clearly at the end of the movie, they'd have been toast within a matter of seconds and wouldn't have had a chance.
The battle axe was obviously a last ditch weapon, carried more for the "security blanket" aspect than because he thought it would be useful.
I especially like the part with Christian Bale's character and the other dude re-enacting scenes from star wars for the kid's bedtime stories. That was classic.
Anyway, I thought it was an entertaining bit of distraction from reality. Does that make me a bad person?
Their version of not seeing well was a slightly (and I mean slightly) out of focus view with a clear outline of the people. When your primary weapon is a breath of fire, I am not sure that you need to have hawklike vision to hit your target. Basic shapes are enough to shoot a flaming stream of death and be effective.
ReplyDeleteAs to you being a bad person ... I definitely wouldn't go that far. There are plenty of movies I like that make others want to claw their eyes out (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Condorman, The Apple Dumpling Gang, Private Eyes, etc.)
I seem to have the blissful ability to just hold the "I believe" button down throughout the course of a movie/television show, and then worry about it later. It at least guarantees me an hour or so of uninterupted entertainment, assuming the graphics can keep me engaged ;).
ReplyDeleteAs for Reign of Fire, as a movie and a story, I honestly did not find it that bad... it had all the right elements, hit all the right high points, and those dragons were badarse. That said, the reality quotient was... low. But, hell, you knew that just from the opening scene :P.