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7.9.02
By Nick Nunziata

Director
Rob (The X-Files) Bowman

Starring
Christian (American Psycho, Empire of the Sun) Bale, Matthew (Dazed and Confused, Frailty) McConaughey, Izabella (Goldeneye, Vertical Limit) Scorupco, Gerard (Dracula 2000) Butler

A great summer gets greater.

Touchstone Pictures has a little gem on its hands, and I feel it’s my job to help polish it.

The idea of a film about dragons laying siege to the modern (OK, actually a little in the future) world seems like something we could only wish for, let alone us having a film with a nice fat budget and a truly talented group of people working on it. In a business where it takes DECADES just to get Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino to appear in the same frame, the thought of a film like this making it to theaters is a Herculean effort. Especially when you consider the amazing amount of compromises that happen with each sequential draft, casting decision, promotional opportunity, and focus group along the way.

Literally, this film could have been Dragonheart or Aliens after the smoke cleared, and where it went right or wrong in the process would be a blur. Not only has it emerged victorious, it’s also that rare film that could be viewed as a science fiction, fantasy, disaster, or even a war film and not leave the mainstream audience hamstrung trying to figure out how dragons could exist in the first place.

Reign of Fire begins as a young Quinn Abercromby is visiting his mother (Borg queen Alice Krige) in a construction dig in London at the very wrong time. As the crew finds a void in the rock beneath the town, Quinn is chosen to squeeze in and check it out. As is the case when you or I choose to squeeze into voids, there’s a nasty behemoth hibernating for the moment to rise up and kick major Homo Erectus ass.

Flash forward a couple of decades, and humanity is a scattered and hungry race. Dragons have scorched the Earth to feed on its ash (a great change of pace from them just wanting flesh, blood, and free subscriptions to The Sporting News), and the few remaining men and women from the holocaust of damage both man and dragon made are just trying to stay alive in hopes the beasts die off.

Kind of like I am with tennis moms.

Leading the ragtag group is an older Quinn (now portrayed by the shockingly handsome and gifted Christian Bale), haunted by his past and more concerned with keeping the children safe and educated than taking the fight to the scaly burners. As he and his flock live scared in their castle (because modern architects don’t build office buildings to withstand catapult fire like they used to), their chances for survival shrink with each burning of their crops by dragonfire.

Enter Denton Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey) and his group of post apocalyptic soldiers. A group bent on finding the beasts and bringing them down, the heavily armed gang clashes directly with peaceful community… but who has the right game plan?

The beauty is finding out.

Director Rob Bowman has stepped firmly out of the shadow of The X-Files and done a phenomenal job of not hawking any recognizable style and creating a world that’s both bleak and optimistic, living firmly in the realm of films like Aliens and Pitch Black but with a little of his own polished flash. The film could have easily coasted on CGI dragons or the bleach bypassed flavor of the month music video style, but instead takes comfort in looking like it could have been made in 1978, 1988, or 2005, but with modern FX.

He’s the real hero of the project, because there’s no baggage with him. He’s got the chops of just about any filmmaker around but doesn’t have the expectations of a David Fincher or the one dimensional visual assault of a Tarsem or Michael Bay.

The result is a helmer who lets his support staff shine and doesn’t get in the way and delivers a superior product without feeling the need to stamp his signature all over it.

It doesn’t hurt having a surprisingly robust quartet of lead actors, all of whom seem like odd choices for their roles but ones who rise to the occasion equally in roles that could have easily been thankless “look good next to the effects” performances.

Christian Bale’s lone cheeseball career choice was Shaft, and he still managed to kick start a few laughs in that facepunch of a film. Here he does the unthinkable in his lead role. He ACTS.

I’ll be damned if this isn’t a summer season of honest to goodness acting in blockbuster films. Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, Willem Dafoe, and now Christian Bale all realize that the core of ANY FILM whether it’s an independent film about a struggling coffee house or a tale about dragon slaying is a crew that tells their story with a straight, convincing face and helps the viewer be transported. Bale does that in spades, whether he’s telling stories to the little kids in his castle (the film’s funniest scene, especially for fans of space operas) or squaring off against the maniacal Van Zan. Bale’s a gifted actor, and this role makes you wonder how a role like Batman would work with his mindset under the cowl.

Matthew McConaughey gets to have all the fun. Grunting and chewing scenery like a goat in a greenhouse, he gets to be larger than life and twice as entertaining. Overacting? Sure, but in the good Clint Eastwood, Bruce Campbell, Treat Williams, Michael Biehn way. To counterbalance the internal, British demeanor of Bale a brash, cocky, invincible Oklahoma boy feels just about right and Matt has a lot of fun with it.

Chomping a cigar like J.J. Jameson, balder than Bruce Willis sans airbrush, and covered in more tattoos than Venice Beach… he’s a nice burst of finely aged cheese with the moderately classy glass of wine provided by Bale’s performance.

Izabella Scorupco has the most thankless role, playing a helicopter pilot sidekick to Van Zan but she still manages to do more than look ravishing (it’s good to know ladies still get access to makeup in a dragon burnt future) and get some moderately meaty scenes in between bouts of screaming orders into her headset.

Gerard Butler represents the 2nd time in two years and actor I loathed came on strong in a summer film and erased my hate for them. The first was Rufus Sewell in A Knight’s Tale last year, who erased all my Dark City venom in a fell swoop. This time Butler sends the bitter taste of Dracula 2000 into the ether with a performance here that proves the actor has… gasp… a personality.

He gets to be the more down to Earth counterpart to Bale’s mostly dead serious character, infusing a little warmth into the castle dwellers and serves as the all important Luke to Bale’s Darth (just see the film, all will be explained). A bad choice to play the most celebrated bloodsucker, the actor gets to use his real accent and have little fun here. Good stuff.

Then there’s the REAL reason people will be seeing the film.

Dragons. Lots of them.

Cinematically, dragons are a mixed lot. Vermithrax from Dragonslayer still remains the most impressively realized non-CGI beastie, while Draco of Dragonheart was pretty neat until he opened his mouth to talk, and the flying creatures of Dungeons & Dragons were mediocre BEFORE Jeremy Irons shat all over the screen with his performance.

These guys have a lot more in common with the former, but unlike that early 80’s creation they breathe, fly, and move like living creatures. There’s no close up shots of obviously puppeteered creations of latex and gelatin and armature nor jerkily animated sculpts of clay… but collections of polygons and pixels that take their cue from Jurassic Park rather than Emmerich’s Godzilla. They’re animals, not money shots with eyes. They look cool as heck, but they don’t simply serve as distracting eye candy wrapped in a bland shell. While the scientific aspect of the film has apparently been toned down from original drafts, there’s still a physiological realness to them… more like hawks than the Spinosaurus.

Function first, coolness second.

It’s certainly not PERFECT, but the elements together add up to make a unique and special movie that runs the risk of being overlapped by the competition. It’s also surprisingly funny at times, and not in a cheap laughs kind of way. Often you’ll see a visual gag, or a beast near a familiar landmark or product that elicits a laugh and it’s kind of a conceit. Here, they accomplish some laughs with little touches that make the difference. Keep an eye out for a little scene involving a “medical emergency” that had us all tickled for the five minutes that followed it, a scene involving a flask, a scene where Quinn points out where London is in reference to their castle, and the Star Wars scene I’ve hinted at.

They’re little touches of much needed personality in a film that pretty much starts with mankind going the way of Microsoft BOB. In a film as dark and bleak as this, those little efforts make it a film that you want to see again instead of a neat bookmark in a crowded summer.

It may not be the best film of the year or even the summer, but it eats the lunch of most of its competition and deserves your hard earned bucks as much as much as anything in the marketplace. It doesn’t scream for a sequel, doesn’t ride a trend, and respects its viewers. Those grounds alone make it a rarity, add to that all I’ve just typed and the fact that just about the whole CHUD screening crowd has a blast with the movie and you have all you need to know you need to give it a chance.

Make this film a hit. Please.

8.1 out of 10

BUY IT AT AMAZON: CLICK HERE!
STUDIO: Warner Bros.
MSRP: $14.97 RATED: R
RUNNING TIME: 117 Minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
• Commentary by Charles Shyer
• Theatrical trailer(s)
• The Affair of the Necklace: The Making of a Scandal
• Designing Affair
• Additional Scenes
• Gag Reel
• Cast/ Crew Highlights

The
time leading up to the French Revolution is
incredibly fascinating. Royalty and peasants,
deep societal discord, baroque architecture
and dress, a pious surface hiding a morally
corrupt core – you could set a great story here.

And
many people have. The Affair of the Necklace,
starring Oscar winner Hillary Swank, is based
on a true story taking place in the months that
led France to revolution – but is it as interesting
as the period in which it takes place?

The Feast of Assumption makes
an ass out of you and mption.

The
Flick

Swank
plays Jeanne se la Motte-Valois, whose family
was once noble but now lives in poverty. An
orphan, she has spent the years since her parents’
deaths plotting her return to high society.

The
route that she ends up taking is basically fraud.
Knowing that a beautiful diamond necklace exists
that Marie Antoinnette (you know her from Hostess
ads in old comics) wants, and that lusty bishop
or something Jonathan Pryce wants to get on
Antoinnette’s good side. So Valois forges letters
from Antoinnette, and intercepts the ones that
Pryce sends back, until she can convince him
to give her money to buy the necklace for the
Queen. Valois takes the necklace and splits
the diamonds up, sells them, and buys her old
estate back.

He was about about to become
a member of the Nation’s Dunked.

Of
course, nobody is quite as stupid as Valois
seems to think and the good times don’t last
long…

And
therein lies my first main problem with the
film. Valois’ grift is just plain dumb. Did
she really think that no one would ever figure
this out? It’s hard to root for a character
who is so obviously cruising for a bruising.

Soldiers march proudly by the
Statue of Interspecies 69.

Which
leads me to the second major problem with the
movie – Swank is about as miscast in this as
John Agar would be in the John Anderton role
in Minority Report. She never comes across as
scheming or devious, but as kind of sweet. If
she had been a real bitch it might have been
fun to anticipate the unravelling of her plan,
but since she seems like an Iowa farm girl transplanted
into the 1700s, it only reinforces the feeling
that she’s a real dummy.

"The Spanish Inquisition!
We’ve been expecting you!"

It’s
a shame that the movie never holds together.
It’s as opulent as you could want a movie in
this genre to ever be, including scenes shot
at Versailles. Jonathan Pryce is wickedly good
as the man of God who hosts orgies, and Christopher
Walken is devilish as Cagliostro, the head of
the Illuminati who helps Valois in her scam
(of course one wonders why a guy as politically
saavy as we are led to believe Cagliostro is
would get involved in such a hare brained scheme…).
Joely Richardson continues to be the goddess
of my loins as Marie Antoinette in a series
of all too sexy fancy dresses. But all of these
actors are undermined by Swank.

Louis thought it might have been
a bad idea to enter a duel armed only with swishiness.

And
by director Charles Shyer, who seems to have
left his sense of pacing at home. A costume
drama does not need to be slow, and it sure
as hell shouldn’t be tepid, which this movie
is. One of the fun things about this era is
the underlying and hidden sexual energy – all
to proper people sneaking away to do all too
improper things to one another. The Affair of
the Necklace was obviously made with an eye
on Respectability – and Oscar. An eye on heat
might have served the film better.

"Dear Ye Olde Penthouse,
I never thought it would happen to me. This
letter is about how I got Marie Antoinette’s
head…"

In
the end there really isn’t a lot to recommend
this movie, and it’s so lukewarm there isn’t
a lot to hate about it either. Unless you’re
really into costume design or a rabid completist
of the works of Christopher Walken you won’t
care much for this one. I can see why Swank
would want to try her hand at this kind of role
– after playing an almost religious martyr in
Boys Don’t Cry she wanted to make sure people
saw she wasn’t all about corn fed goodness.
Too bad she is.

6.2
out of 10

The
Look

"Hey, this is a private
conversation, God."

The
Affair of the Necklace is full of some really
wonderful cinematography, and for the most part
the anamorphic transfer does it real justice.
Colors are vivid and true, with flesh tones
looking exceptionally nice. Some outdoor night
scenes seem to suffer though, and I wonder if
it isn’t a lighting problem with the film itself,
as some of the indoor night scenes look great.
The outdoor scenes seem to be a little murky,
while the indoor ones, even when lit by "candlelight"
have a clarity and definition that works well.

8.0
out of 10

The
Noise

"I carried this necklace
up my ass for ten years.."

The
first thing I noticed was the soundtrack on
this Dolby 5.1 surround track – it sounds great.
Also of note was the nice use of subtle surround
effects, like horse hooves in the rear channels
during a carriage sequence. The mix is immersive
without being too distracting.

8.8
out of 10

The
Goodies

First
up is a feature length commentary with director
Charles Shyer, which is pretty good. He covers
the usual bases but is a good speaker. I was
interested in the historical aspects of the
film, and he covers them pretty well, as well
as some interesting behind the scenes stuff
like the danger of over researching a film.

The new French Aristocracy habitat
at the Bronx Zoo.

There
is a boring behind the scenes featurette, a
piece on the design of the film and a gag reel
(Jonathan Pryce seems to be a funny guy to work
with). We also get a series of deleted scenes
with optional commentary. Usually the commentary
on deleted scenes is weak, but Shyer does a
good job, especially during the alternate opening
sequence. It’s interesting to hear why a scene
doesn’t work as opposed to just being told that
it doesn’t.

8.0
out of 10

The
Artwork

If
only Hillary Swank wore that outfit more often
in the movie. I’m not all that taken with the
art here, but it doesn’t offend as badly as
a floating head might. Her neck does seem abnormal,
however.

6.0 out of 10