As I mentioned earlier, Monday's movie night. But I didn't expect to almost star in my own version of The Towering Inferno.
Important safety tip: If you're following a recipe that says to heat a pan for 10 minutes over medium heat, make sure a) you use medium heat, not high heat, and b) the pan is a dense metal like cast iron, not thinner aluminum. Otherwise, when you follow the next instruction and add a tablespoon of oil to the pan, you're likely to create a dense mushroom cloud of greasy black smoke and a gout of flame which, by some miracle, might fail to ignite your wooden cabinetry or burn your ceiling but which will have you scrubbing the kitchen for the next two hours.
Accordingly, the appropriate film for the evening was Reign of Fire, a film in which the few bits of London left unscathed by the dragons were mercilessly chewed by Matthew McConaughey. This film butchered a great idea (dragons awakening in modern times to go on a rampage), glossing over the enormous potential of this backstory to jump forward 20 years for banal set pieces and action sequences. There are any number of great stories that could have been told from this core premise, and the passed them all by. The dragons were quite well done, however, and the mammoth male dragon engulfing the castle with its wings was a great image. Everything else about the film just hurt.
Posted by Peter at October 7, 2003 11:01 AMYour summary doesn't been to half-capture what a disappointing bore this movie was.
One is promised a peek at dragons laying waste to modern London, while duking it out with Apache helicopters. Instead, one gets 2 hours of people standing around in empty fields rambling on about honor and responsability.
This movie was like The Postman, without all the witty dialogue and terrific acting.
Posted by: Russell Ginns on October 7, 2003 12:39 PMSaw it for free at a preview ... wanted my money back anyway.
I did think the dragons were very well done; blended in perfectly to my CGI-jaundiced eye.
Isn't it amazing that in a post-apocalyptic world of starvation and menace, the female lead still had access to excellent makeup products?
Only really good parts:
- The "Star Wars" play (renacting scenes from Empire Strikes Back to entertain the toddlers); this rang true
- The "Bros. Hildebrant" dragon-incinerating-the-castle scene
But as usual I want my science fiction and my fantasy to keep well seperated and this movie truly failed there.
Posted by: Howard M. Lewis Ship on October 7, 2003 02:11 PMThe light saber duel reenactment genuinely delighted me as an inspired piece of verisimilitude-- a great moment in an otherwise disappointing film.
As Russell points out above, the film does seem to promise DRAGONS VS. MODERN TECHNOLOGY or DRAGONS ATTACK MODERN CITIES, but you get neither. What were they thinking?
If you're saying the film mixed fantasy and science fiction, I disagree. The only F/SF element in the film are the dragons. Which side of the slash they go on depends on your point of view, but there's no other element of fantasy and there's no other element of science fiction in the film. I don't see the conflict.
Posted by: Peter Sarrett on October 7, 2003 02:53 PMThere was a little modern tech vs dragon in there, and I'm guessing that's where the sci-fi referred to above comes in. 3D mapping of the dragon so it could be tracked by the chopper is certainly reaching into science.
I really wanted a dragon movie with a few people - I was very dissapointed. There were many more dragons in the end scene of Dungeons and Dragons and they did more too, though they didn't really look as good.
And of course, this movie really did suck in pretty much every way.
Someone please find me a good movie with lots of dragons!
Posted by: Larry on October 7, 2003 06:04 PMi find it interesting that everyone is interested in panning the movie but not a mention of the fact that peter's game collection nearly went to the big game parlor in the sky!
Posted by: dana on October 7, 2003 10:29 PM