Managed to get an early view of the Reign of Fire DVD. Here are my thoughts on this release:
MOVIE: C
VIDEO: B
AUDIO: B+
EXTRAS: C

...and - for those who like things just a bit less 'terse' - here are a few more reviews (of the movie and the DVD) for your delectation...

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Just got this and watched it. The suplemental stuff wasnt all that great or indepth but it was interesting. The movie was even better than I remember it being in the theater. The DTS sound was so awesome. This is a movie id recomend just for the audio. Just my $.02

I saw this last night and I liked it. Its good popcorn material.

I give it a 'B'.

Picture and DTS sound are excellent. The movie left a little to be desired, seeming to do little but build up momentum for the next dragon appearance (which had excellent CGI work).

Movie: C+
Picture: B+
Sound: A
Extras: didn't view

Very enjoyable, good dragon movie with some great dragon effects. A/V (dts) was very good, but the blacks seemed a bit washed out and lacked detail. Other than that, great DVD.


Peace Out~

Some casual reviews:

http://www.themanroom.com/modules.ph...content&id=183

I liked this in the theaters, and I picked up the DVD and gave it another viewing. I have to say I think this is a very underrated sci-fi/action movie.

I thought the production values were top notch, and the cinematography was great, with lot of beautiful, interestingly filmed shots with great atmosphere and framing. I really liked the fact that the director did not go for the campy, tongue-in-cheek approach, but instead took a dead-serious tone. Of course the Van Zan character was a bit over the top and was chewing the scenery, but still he felt like a realistic character----he didn't always have a witty one-liner, and he was proven wrong and got a dose of humility during the story.

I thought the interaction of the human groups in a post-apocolyptic future was a bit more subtle and realistic than the Mad Max movies----no S & M bikers and warring tribes, but rather differing groups of people who needed each other even if they didn't trust or like each other.

Especially comparing a smaller movie like this to Attack of the Clones, I thought Reign of Fire had quite a respectable cast of actors, and there weren't really any examples of lame delivery of horrible dialogue that made you wince (like any of the lines between Padme and Annakin).

I know many people were disappointed by the lack of giant battle scenes between helicopters and dragons, but I thought the smaller scale approach to the dragon battles made them that much more visceral. And I just thought there were some great moments of originality here---the skydivers going after the dragon was a really exciting, creative and original sci-fi scene. And on a personal note, when I'm going to see a fun B-movie, I don't want to see the disgusting blood and gore effects of some geeky fangoria make-up guy, I want to see good directing, atmosphere and action-----so I appreciated that there wasn't much gore in this one.

Now I'm not saying this should have won a Best Picture oscar, but for this genre, I thought it was excellent filmmaking. And I think the director makes a pretty good case for himself in the interview, too. I liked it a lot.

Ky-Fi,

You echo my exact thoughts. I really enjoyed this film and was okay with the fact that there were no huge battles as deceptively hinted by the inaccurate ad campaign (London, 2084 A.D. anyone? ).

But I was disappointed with the special features. No deleted scenes when the trailer shows at least two scenes that are not in the actual film? Also, the DVD was oddly missing two lines from the theatrical release (which did happen to be in the captions and English subtitle track, tough ).

I also remember that when this film was discussed in the Movie Talk forum there was discussion about the film originally having a much darker ending and that 30 minutes were excised from the film prior to release (not to mention the possibility of a director's cut release). What happened?

Yeah, I agree. The extras they did have were pretty good, but definitely on the lightweight side. It would have been nice to have some alternate/deleted scenes, and I would have liked to see more of the storyboard artwork, too.

One of the stupidest movies I've seen in a long time.

SPOILERS:

I watched it the other day and thought it was pretty good as well. I like the twist on the existence of dragons, and i like the whole destroyed world thing.

I thought it was a great action flick. It was original, cinematically pleasant to view, had great DTS sound and a great set of actors. Ever since T2 and JP it seems action/fantasy movies try to pass along some preachy moral message, usually presented as a holier than thou diatribe by the character that's supposedly smarter than everyone else and 'knows what's really going on.' This had none of that, and I'd give it an extra star just for that reason!

Sierra Disc,

Originally posted by RocShemp:
Also, the DVD was oddly missing two lines from the theatrical release (which did happen to be in the captions and English subtitle track, though.)

Why be so vague? Can you please post the missing lines, and where they are supposed to fit into the film proper?

I watched this DVD last night, and really enjoyed it. The DTS sound is almost worth buying the DVD for itself, just to impress people with your system.

As for the missing two lines, I had the subtitles on, and there was two lines that Van Dan "said" that came up in the subtitles, but he did not say. Unfortunately, I can't remember what they are! If only I read this thread before I watched the movie. Sorry!

Originally posted by movieking:
there was two lines that Van Dan "said" that came up in the subtitles, but he did not say

If I read you correctly, do you mean that some dialogue appears in the subtitle stream, but the character's lips do not move to it, thereby indicating that the lines may have been scripted, but not actually filmed?

If I recall correctly, Van Dan had his back to the camera, so you couldn't tell if he was actually saying it or not.

Huh...well, ain't that a queer little b*tch?

Anyone else have any more specific information, like the text of the lines themselves? Thanks for everything thus far, movieking...

Sorry. It wasn't my intent to seem "vague." I just thought the missing lines was common knowledge to fans of the film as one of the excised lines in referenced in one of the reviews of this site.

Anyhoo, the first missing line should have appeared This line is missing on the DVD but appears on the captions (both TV generated and those appearing as an English subtitle track). It also appears translated in the Spanish subtitles and you hear the line dubbed in the French track. The other line is

I saw this film twice in theatres and really missed Van Zan's line (though the scene works fine without it) but was cool with the removal of Quinn's line (as the line itself didn't seem like the right thing to say as Quinn saw the bull fly away).

I'm just curious as to why they're missing on the English audio track (both Dolby Digital and DTS) but appear translated in the French dub and Spanish subtitles and also appear in the English subtitle track and the closed captions when activated by my TV.

movieking,

You don't see Van Zan saying his missing dialogue because he says it while the camera has a close-up of his hand as he openes it to let go of the ash he was holding in it. As for Quinn's missing line, his back is to the camera as he's running up the stairs and yelling his lines.

Hmmm...thanks and, weird...

I don't recall either line from my theatrical viewing, but I'm with you--thank goodness that second line is gone, it sounds like a real Lucas-esque stinker! As far as the first line goes, it's not a deal-breaker--film is meant to show, not tell...that dialogue, while being evocative, seems ultimately superfluous...

No problem, Filmmaker. Yeah, the second line was bad. That's why I'm okay it's gone. It just kills the suprise of what's to happen next (not that you didn't have sort of an inkling it was coming). As for Van Zan's line, your reasoning is exactly why I'm okay with the line being gone. In some ways, I feel the scene works better without it as Van Zan's gesture with the ash is much more powerful on its own. I just happened to really like the line but am cool with it being gone.

I just figured the director did a last minute tweak (totally negating the 132 minute director's cut rumour) to the film prior to the DVD release but was weirded out by the fact that the captions, subtitles (both English and Spanish), and French dub all still contain these missing lines.