Reign of Fire the Director
So there was always a part of me that wanted to see 'Reign of Fire.' I wanted to see dragons, darn it! And dragons in a post-apocalyptic world sounded even more like a recipe for awesome. But after hearing fairly negative reviews, I stayed away. All the same, I was still curious...
Well, thanks to the good people of Rifftrax, I was able last night to "enjoy" the movie without having to face it without some form of protection. And boy, the Rifftrax was definitely needed. It wasn't the best Rifftrax I'd experienced, but it was hampered mostly by uneven sound balance, plus the fact that the actors in the movie couldn't enunciate clearly to save their lives. It's hard to enjoy riffs when you can't understand what they're riffing on.
That said, the movie had an unrelentingly gritty, depressing atmosphere. Barring a couple of clever moments that would have done better in a better movie, comic relief was nowhere in sight. Apparently people in the future forgot about it, just as they'd forgotten so many things in this post-apocalyptic hellscape--for example, how to swab a cut with iodine instead of just pouring the iodine bottle on it.
So, yeah. The whole movie seemed to consist of dirty, grim-faced people mumbling incoherently to each other, interspersed randomly with scenes of dirty, grim-faced people running around and yelling incoherently at each other. There was a lot of fire, lots of dirt, lots of guns, and not nearly enough dragons. Seriously, I came for the dragons and they were hardly seen, except in the distance or filmed in brief quick-cuts through dim lighting.
Don't even get me started on how the dragon-based premise was one of the most blatant cases of "You Fail Biology Forever" that I've ever seen. Even I could create a post-apocalyptic dragon story better than that! And it starts with making the dragons not evil, ash-eating, holey-winged, single-male-for-the-entire-species freaks. Come on, what sane life form evolves in such a way that they destroy their food supply until they all starve to death, where "starve to death" means "goes into hibernation for several million years until the earth replenishes itself"?
Ah, well. In good news, I got a brand-new ocarina (apparently by the same makers of the first ocarina I ever got, but smaller and in a higher key) and have been having a lot of fun playing it. It is probably the best-tuned ocarina I've ever played. I even figured out an easy way to produce a raised fourth (sharps and flats can be kind of tricky on an ocarina), which opens up quite a few musical horizons for me.
Well, thanks to the good people of Rifftrax, I was able last night to "enjoy" the movie without having to face it without some form of protection. And boy, the Rifftrax was definitely needed. It wasn't the best Rifftrax I'd experienced, but it was hampered mostly by uneven sound balance, plus the fact that the actors in the movie couldn't enunciate clearly to save their lives. It's hard to enjoy riffs when you can't understand what they're riffing on.
That said, the movie had an unrelentingly gritty, depressing atmosphere. Barring a couple of clever moments that would have done better in a better movie, comic relief was nowhere in sight. Apparently people in the future forgot about it, just as they'd forgotten so many things in this post-apocalyptic hellscape--for example, how to swab a cut with iodine instead of just pouring the iodine bottle on it.
So, yeah. The whole movie seemed to consist of dirty, grim-faced people mumbling incoherently to each other, interspersed randomly with scenes of dirty, grim-faced people running around and yelling incoherently at each other. There was a lot of fire, lots of dirt, lots of guns, and not nearly enough dragons. Seriously, I came for the dragons and they were hardly seen, except in the distance or filmed in brief quick-cuts through dim lighting.
Don't even get me started on how the dragon-based premise was one of the most blatant cases of "You Fail Biology Forever" that I've ever seen. Even I could create a post-apocalyptic dragon story better than that! And it starts with making the dragons not evil, ash-eating, holey-winged, single-male-for-the-entire-species freaks. Come on, what sane life form evolves in such a way that they destroy their food supply until they all starve to death, where "starve to death" means "goes into hibernation for several million years until the earth replenishes itself"?
Ah, well. In good news, I got a brand-new ocarina (apparently by the same makers of the first ocarina I ever got, but smaller and in a higher key) and have been having a lot of fun playing it. It is probably the best-tuned ocarina I've ever played. I even figured out an easy way to produce a raised fourth (sharps and flats can be kind of tricky on an ocarina), which opens up quite a few musical horizons for me.