Reign of Fire (2002) Review

rating: ****

the story: Dragons are accidentally awakened in the modern world, and subsequently are the subject of a desperate quest to eliminate as mankind struggles to survive.

review: This is the of film you're maybe not sure what to think of initially, if you're like me, but years later realize what an improbable phenomenon it really is.  Here I'm thinking of it in terms of Matthew McConaughey, whom I've grown to appreciate more and more over the years, and how even now he's never done anything even remotely close (unless you count Free State of Jones) to it since, and he's basically a supporting player to Christian Bale the whole time.  Bale has made a career of the unexpected, and since Reign has certainly covered genre material quite heavily (Batman, Terminator: Salvation), so it's not as difficult to reconcile with the rest of his career, but in hindsight it might be easier to view as a rare original role in one that with Batman and Salvation sought to myth-build so eagerly.

Besides that, it's another movie featuring Gerard Butler before 300, when he was still mostly anonymous.  For me, it was also one of the films from this period to feature Alexander Siddig, a standout from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, although he has few enough lines, and the original reason I sought Reign out in the first place.  The film is directed by another Star Trek veteran, Rob Bowman, whose next and most recent production, Elektra, ended up defining his Hollywood career.

Watching Bale and McConaughey grapple with the dragon problem, and each other, Bale's guilt for having unleashed them (in his mind) to begin with, also rings true with Bale's later career, also filled with such roles, and as such is essential viewing as to how it took shape.  The bald pate McConaughey sports doesn't really hide his essentially heroic nature, though as in his critical breakthrough role in True Detective, he's his rogue self trying to let the hero out when other people (Bale, in this instance) can't see it.

And it's a movies about dragons!  Since most of the action takes place at night, the film doesn't have to worry about the effects holding up, since they were designed to pop effortlessly, and so they certainly hold up to modern expectations.  Critics typically hate genre films that don't blunt their stories with comedy, but then they also hate comedy, which is to say, they don't like genre films, so Reign was always going to have a tough crowd.  Even in 2002, franchises were so important to success, but Reign concludes its epic in the one movie, so there was no hook other than the spectacle on display, and mostly the human drama generated by Bale and McConaughey, which should have been enough, and is, if you let it, and it shouldn't be that hard to manage.

It's a textbook definition of a lost gem.

Interstellar (2014) Review

rating: *****

the story: An astronaut goes on an epic journey.

review: Outside of Memento and The Dark Knight, my favorite Christopher Nolan film has long been Interstellar. That seems like weird wording, but they are three distinct achievements, and so at least for me it makes sense. The conventional logic always picks Inception as Nolan’s best high concept, but for me Interstellar is infinitely better. It’s not just a piece of clever filmmaking. It may be Nolan’s best emotional investment.

2001: A Space Odyssey effectively began a whole new genre. It’s often overlooked as such but Star Trek: The Motion Picture pioneered efforts to solidify the astronauts in trouble genre. The Hollywood Solaris remake revived it, and of course in recent years there have been so many that many of the more recent ones, including worthy contenders like Ad Astra and High Life are actually obscure. But the best of them, arguably the best overall, is Interstellar.

This is Nolan reaching as far into the profound as he has so far been willing to go, at least as far as the sweep of history 2001 meant to be, toward Terrence Malick, Tree of Life territory. A lot of Nolan’s movies are allegories for his criticisms of conventional modern thinking, what we keep telling ourselves we shouldn’t be doing, what’s so wrong with the world. Here he aims himself at the abject nihilism of our future prospects, chief among them what happens to a planet pushed to its environmental brink, and whether or not humans are capable of adapting.

He pursues this by telling a story about a man and his daughter, a man who goes on an epic quest, and the daughter who doesn’t want him to go, a man who sees wonders, and a daughter who sees wonders, too. About how these wonders are strangely interconnected. 

Matthew McConaughey had just reached his peak of critical approval. He had a one-two punch with True Detective on TV and Dallas Buyers Club in the movies. Suddenly he had his choice of the best material. His charisma has often been taken for granted, his stereotype seen as a big dumb hunk of beef. Yet the career I see is one filled with fascinating choices, full of unbelievable diversity. That’s a story for another day. Suffice it to say, but out of all that Interstellar, for me, somehow stands heads and shoulders above all of it. And his best scenes are wordless, are McConaughey crying at seeing his children, growing up, on a screen.

The bond he shares with his daughter, in particular, portrayed at three different ages, Jessica Chastain in the middle, is of course the heart of the movie. The message their bond sends is often overlooked. Especially if it’s a Disney movie, we’re often told the younger generation has all the answers, but this is a movie that acknowledges how progress can be made through generational ambition, how the dreams and the bonds forged between a father and daughter can change the world.

The splendor of movie magic finds its poetry in an infinite bookshelf that allows them to communicate through time. It feels like Nolan channeling Shyamalan, and maybe this is the precise moment in which they finally meet. I love them both. They are both treasures of the medium. I don’t mind observing this.

The sheer spectacle of the cast alone is worth noting. There’s McConaughey and Chastain, of course; Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, Matt Damon! Topher Grace, John Lithgow, Ellen Burstyn, Timothée Chalamet, David Oyelowo, Wes Bentley...I officially ran out of space in the number of labels Blogger let me add, that’s how rich this cast is. Some roles are larger than others. Every one of them is worth admission.

It is a transcendent experience. For me, that’s the height of cinema, the ability to reach well beyond the normal, not merely some beautifully told tale, but one that’s a truly singular experience, that could not be duplicated in another medium, that uses all the available tools to maximum effect, a convergence of epic talent and vision.

The very strange thing is that Arrival is very much at the same level and tells much the same story and is as tall an achievement, and I don’t much think of them as rivals, and they were in theaters within two years of each other. That’s pretty stellar.