I see a dark sail on the horizon
Set under a dark cloud that hides the sun
Bring me my Broadsword and clear understanding
Bring me my cross of gold as a talisman
Get up to the roundhouse on the cliff-top standing
Take women and children and bed them down.
Bring me my Broadsword and clear understanding
Bring me my cross of gold as a talisman
Bless with a hard heart those who surround me
Bless the women and children who firm our hands
Put our backs to the North wind. Hold fast by the river
Sweet memories to drive us on for the Motherland.
Jethro Tull
To the mythologically challenged, Reign of Fire probably appears to
be no more than a standard special effects-laden action movie. The struggle
against big bad scary monsters is a great fallback for directors who want
to pack a lot of action (and explosions) into a two hour span. Independence
Day and the Alien franchise gave us horrible monsters from outer
space. Godzilla used an ordinary iguana mutated by radiation to spread
mayhem. Jurassic Park brought us the carnage caused by resurrected
dinosaurs. And now Reign of Fire calls on that oldest and most fearsome
of creatures, the dragon, to inspire terror, awe, and probably another line
of plastic action figures.
As a testosterone driven adrenaline-fest, Reign of Fire is an acceptable
if not outstanding effort. To the more mythologically aware, however, Reign
of Fire has quite a bit to offer in addition to an endorphin high. There
is food for thought here, and there are examples of much that we rely upon
folklore, myth, and fantasy to illuminate in our lives.
Reign of Fire opens in present day London, where a civil engineering
project has broken into a subterranean cavern. Asleep in this cave are the
remnants of an ancient and terrible species. Young Quinn Abercromby, son of
the lead project engineer (Alice Krige), is present when an awakened dragon
emerges. He survives his encounter with the beast, but his mother is killed.
Flash forward to 2020, when the rapidly reproducing and rapacious dragons
have nearly destroyed the planet. Immune even to atomic weapons (in fact,
they prefer to consume the ash of organic matter so they thrive on nuclear
devastation), intelligent and vicious, the dragons are now beginning to run
out of food and are even eating each other. Humanity survives in small and
isolated pockets. Quinn is the de facto leader of a band of these survivors,
and they live in hiding in an ancient Northumberland castle. Terrified of
both dragons and sporadic encounters with marauding bandits, nearing starvation,
the survivors (many of whom are children rescued by Quinn) are desperate.
Quinn and his friend Creedy (Gerard Butler) are faced with insubordination
from the panicking refugees.
Enter the cavalry. Denton Van Zan leads a band of Americans who have managed
to assume that most inspiring and venerated of ancient titles, dragonslayer.
They have not only cobbled together a fairly high-tech armory, but have devised
a heroic if not necessarily foolproof method of battling the dragons. And
wild-eyed, fervid Van Zan believes that he has the key to ultimate freedom
from the demonic creatures. Van Zan believes that the dragons reproduce like
fish, with one male fertilizing many females and the females returning to
their birthplace to spawn. Therefore, he and his army are on their way to
London seeking the male dragon that must be fertilizing all of the females.
"Kill the male," he says, " and you kill the species."
Quinn initially distrusts Van Zan, but quickly takes his measure eye to eye,
in the way that only men can. He invites the small army into the castle. After
Quinn aids Van Zan and his skydiving "archangels" in a bloody and disastrous
battle against a dragon, Van Zan asks for volunteers to join his forces in
the raid on London. Though a few volunteer, Quinn is convinced that the foolhardy
mission will bring down disaster upon the castle, and he refuses to join them.
Van Zan and his followers head for the city, and Quinn is proven all too prescient
when death and destruction are unleashed on Van Zan's convoy and immediately
thereafter, Quinn's castle.
With little left of the castle, Quinn's only option to protect his people
is to join Van Zan and helicopter pilot Alexandra on a last desperate and
suicidal trek into London. He guides Van Zan and Alexandra into the heart
of the city, where armed only with one automatic weapon and a few explosive
tipped crossbow bolts, they must enter into a final confrontation with the
formidable male dragon.
There is little suspense here as to the outcome of the trip. The dragon must
be slain, the hero must prevail. This is a retelling of a myth as old as human
history, the slayer of the ravening beast is an archetype we need to believe
in. Reign of Fire, far from being merely the latest in the monster
movie genre, is but a new offshoot of the World Tree of our collective consciousness.
Consider this passage from ancient Babylonian myth, as the hero-god Marduk
battles the dragon Tiamat:
Marduk and Tiamat prepared for battle. Marduk armed himself with a net
and club, and a bow that fired arrows of lightning. He rode upon a chariot
pulled by four fierce horses, accompanied by the four winds.
The battle began and Marduk spread his net to capture Tiamat. She quickly
opened her mouth wide to swallow him. Seeing his chance, Marduk sent one of
the winds inside Tiamat, blasting down her throat and blowing her jaws apart.
Marduk then drew his bow and fired an arrow through her gaping mouth, straight
into her heart.
Director Rob Bowman, an X-Files alumnus, is certainly familiar with
myth and legend. This movie connects with the hidden world much more adeptly
and subtly than The X-Files, though.
As an ordinary action film, Reign of Fire contains several plot devices
that are never satisfactorily explained. According to the biology of known
species, it is highly unlikely that an entire species would be able to survive
with only one male in evidence. And where does Van Zan get the fuel necessary
to fly across the ocean and trek across Britain? Not to mention flying battle
missions in a helicopter on a regular basis. However, logic and action-adventure
films are of necessity frequently only passing acquaintances. Six-shooters
that fire dozens of rounds or cars that explode following the most minor of
accidents are mainstays of the genre, so these few errors in Reign of Fire
should barely give the audience pause.
Neither should they disturb the folklorists among us. Who stops the Teller
of Tales to ask where the magical sword came from, or to protest that animals
can't really talk, or to pooh-pooh the idea of a witch's curse? These things
are integral to the story, and even the smallest child understands that the
outcome of the story itself is the point. Only when the errors interfere with
the story do they become a problem. Here they do not.
Reign of Fire brings us several archetypes at once, and the actors
in this film for the most part do a beautiful job of portraying characters
who are both real and representational. Matthew McConaughey is amazing as
Denton Van Zan. His manner speaks of a man who has seen too many horrors,
and yet carries on because he has to. He believes in his cause and with the
zeal of the true believer he sways followers to him. McConaughey is not afraid
to be ugly here. Red-eyed, gravel voiced, sweaty and scarred, Van Zan is not
the usual pretty-boy action hero who fights a dozen villains at once
without mussing his hair. McConaughey is utterly right in the Hero role.
Equally good is Christian Bale as Quinn. He is absolutely the gentle, peaceful
man who has greatness thrust upon him. He is a benevolent ruler who loves
his people and risks his own life to protect them. The figurative joust between
Van Zan and Quinn occurs for one reason alone. Both love their folk, but Van
Zan is a leader and a commander, while Quinn is merely a shepherd. Quinn cannot
ultimately maintain order among his people, even with Creedy's assistance.
Quinn's people love him but love is not respect. Van Zan's troops are loyal
to him not just because they care about him, but because they respect him.
He does not coddle them. Quinn wants to dig in, hide, and hope. Van Zan wants
to attack the problem head-on. The battle here is between Hope and Pragmatism,
between Paralysis and Action. Reign of Fire deals with the Hero's Journey.
Not only the quest, the chase for the Grail, the wresting of treasure from
the dragon's jaws: but the journey of transformation that Quinn must make
within himself to become the archetypal Hero.
This is very much a masculine film, in that it deals primarily with the male
archetypes. Yet there is a strong female character. Though Isabella Scorupko
does not do Alexandra justice in the way a more experienced actress might
have, still the character as written is a most gratifying change from the
two main female action roles. Alex is not a simpering, whining, helpless sexpot
in need of rescuing. She is not a liability, a weak link, or just the romantic
interest. She is also not a shaven-headed, beefy broad, a la Ripley in Aliens.
Alexandra is not required to give up her femininity to do her job as a pilot
and a warrior. She remains womanly while displaying courage and skill.
Reign of Fire is a dark film, as well it should be. It takes place
in a world of smoke, ash, and dirt. Even daylight scenes are murky and this
adds to the somber mood of the film. Refreshingly for a post-Apocalyptic movie,
characters dress normally and humanity has not been degraded into Mad Max
style punk/S&M hair and clothing. This world looks much like it should
look according to the circumstances of the plot. Special effects, mainly much
fire and the CGI dragons, are quite good. The dragons are not the cuddly ungainly
vision found in, for example, Dragonheart. These dragons are nasty,
the classic Wyrm, fast, powerful demons straight out of a Bosch painting.
These are the dragons at the heart of Sigurd's story, and St. George's tale,
creatures from nightmare who have only lately in human history been replaced
by bug-eyed monsters from outer space. These dragons are the original Beasts.
Reign of Fire is not the best fantasy or special effects film of the
year. Indeed, following as it does on the heels of Harry Potter, Fellowship
of the Ring, and Star Wars Episode II, it may not even register
on the radar screen. But Reign of Fire is a solid film worth a good
look from any fantasy fan. Before masculinity became anathema, before men
were feminized into sensitive navel-gazers who attempt to understand the monster
rather than cut out the nonsense and save us from it, there were Heroes. There
are Heroes in this film, and it's a deeper movie than I anticipated given
the advertising. Don't ignore this film.
