OxfordPress.com

Grade: B-

Verdict: Good clean post-apocalypse fire-breathing fun.

Details: Starring Christian Bale, Matthew McConaughey and Izabella Scorupco. Directed by Rob Bowman. Rated PG-13 for intense action violence and flying dragons. One hour, 40 minutes.

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Review: Last we heard of life in a post-apocalypse world, Tina Turner and the crew of "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" were telling us they didn't need another hero. But according to "Reign of Fire," mankind sure does in A.D. 2020. As many as can be spared, in fact.

The trouble, in this, the latest silver-screen tale of catch-as-catch-can survival in a future gone terribly wrong, is that Homo sapiens is all but extinct. Bummer.

Or perhaps "Doh!" would be the operative term, seeing as all the trouble stems back to when a 12-year-old boy awakens an enormous slumbering dragon dozing deep beneath London. Don't even ask how this particular plot point is set up, because it involves cheerful construction workers, far underground, sending children deep into newly discovered caves for no particular reason.

One can only imagine the kid's chagrin when the beast — randy after a centuries-long catnap — proceeds to populate the world with its hellspawn. The dragons breed like bunnies and feed, we're told, solely on ash. So they burn whatever they can to a cinder. Staggered governments eventually respond with nuclear force, to no avail.

Years later, a ragtag group of survivors, led by the grown-up kid (Christian Bale), have squirreled themselves away at a makeshift castle encampment. Enter Matthew McConaughey's Van Zan, a lively and ofttimes believable American military dragon slayer who cheerfully eschews the lance for the explosive crossbow bolt and Apache helicopter.

With him comes a team of crack forces, including token love interest Alex (Izabella Scorupco). Together they'll gather the courage, and firepower, necessary to lay the foul beasts to rest once and for all.

With the planet painted as being in ruins, the stage is set for an epic tale of man vs. the diabolic, in a truly mythic vein. Only, such a story never presents itself; director Rob Bowman (“The X-Files") opts instead to cast the creatures as merely heinous abominations born not of magic, but of flesh and blood. Again, the reader is cautioned not to ask how a tattered few boasting only some antiquated armaments are able to do something the combined firepower of the entire world's governments were not able to accomplish.

While special-effects impresarios Richard Hoover (“Armageddon") and Dan DeLeeuw (“The Rock") effectively bring their signature wizardry to bear during combat and chase sequences, audiences never get the broad glimpse of post-holocaust Earth they'd hope for (and that the "Reign of Fire" posters promise).

But fans of popcorn cinema won't be disappointed by the thrill-a-minute, rah-rah onscreen trials. See free-falling paratroopers (“Archangels") bait a pursuing reptile! Watch while grimy, can-do soldiers levy high-caliber machine gun fire at a great flying wyrm! Gaze white-knuckled as a horse-mounted Quinn rides like the wind to recover a final beacon required to triangulate a pesky dragon's position! (Van Zan's tanks apparently don't have radar.) Giggle at knowing reference after knowing reference to other sword 'n' sorcerer epics!

The only thing you don't get is the complete realization of a film that had the potential to spawn a "Star Wars"-like franchise. Despite its inherent fun, the comparatively small scale leaves one disappointed, as does an anticlimactic climax. And left without a comprehensive base of content upon which to draw, Touchstone Pictures must sadly kiss anything but the most fleeting toy, book and apparel licensing deals goodbye.

It's not entirely Bowman and Co.'s fault; this film was never expected to upstage big-budget rivals like "Men in Black II" or "Minority Report." Yet in some ways it does, by making the most of allotted production values and playing a novel concept for a few truly riveting moments. A disaster of "Dungeons & Dragons" proportions was not only skillfully averted but spun into a futuristic fairy tale casual moviegoers may tumble for.

Academy Award material such a feisty firebrand isn't. Likely to entertain your average actioner fan? Roger that.

— Scott Steinberg, for (none)