I went into Reign of Fire not knowing what to expect from the movie. I had read several reviews, both mixed, so I really wasn’t sure what kind of movie this was going to be. To be perfectly honest, up until about two months before the film was released last Friday, I had not idea it even existed, which isn’t necessarily a case of bad marketing, just maybe some bad exposure to the consumer. Besides all of the trivial, “What was it going to be like?” questions, I wondered if it could come out from behind Men in Black II’s shadow and hopefully stomp on Tom Hanks’ Road to Perdition.

Reign of Fire was an excellent movie, and one wonders why it didn’t beat out the two movies listed above in the box office, but as my friend Thomas Porter said to me during our screening of the movie on Sunday, “This is sure to be a cult classic.”

So does Reign of Fire have the ability to join the ranks of Pulp Fiction and Army of Darkness as one of the great cult fiction movies of our generation? Yes, in many ways.

The movie focuses on the awakening of a pre-historic dragon species that every couple of thousand years comes out of their slumber to reek havoc upon the world. They caused the extinction of the Dinosaurs, they caused the Ice Ages with the ash that plagued the sky and cooled the planet, they help evolution along in some ways. But when a young boy named Quinn awakens the dominant male of the species it only takes a matter of years before the cities of the Earth are in ruins, and the human species could be the next on the Endangered Species List.

Still many would hear the plot, and think this is your typical post-apocalyptic movie with humans struggling to survive after a nuclear explosion/deadly plague/or undiscovered species (pick one). This isn’t no Waterworld, and Matthew McConaughey is one bad-ass in this movie as Van Zan the leader of an American troop of soldiers who have killed hundreds of these flying beasts. When they learn that it all started in London, they set out on a mission to destroy the dominant male and the species, for good.

While most plot points are predictable, and several overly used theatrical elements are present (like killing a main character), the movie excels past them, and is amazing in the visual department of a very grey, dark world where fire has consumed the planet. Luckily, the use of the dragon special effects were never overused, and there is only a few instances where you actually get a good look at one, and boy do they look pretty.

Reign of Fire is a popcorn movie, but after seeing Men in Black II last week and having some time to reflect upon it, I would have much rather have seen Reign because of the fact this movie has nothing to prove, it is just good story telling and good direction. Excellent movie, excellent cast, makes for an excellent time. Don’t’ miss this one.

So here we are five days after the release of Men in Black II and I’m just finally getting out of the house to see it. Why did it take me so long to get off my lazy ass an off to the theatre? Because I’m beginning to hate going to the movies on opening day and getting trampled by people who just got off of the “net” and read some “reviews” and can tell me every plot point before it finally happens. See I don’t need someone to tell me because those of us with brains bigger than a dog’s left-nut can figure out movies for ourselves. Anyway, I’m becoming skewed…

Men in Black II is the latest and supposedly greatest in the line of summer movies, I even predicted it would be the biggest movie of the summer, but who really expected Spider-Man to destroy records like it did, I sure didn’t. The movie stars Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith as agents of the top secret organization that polices alien activity on the planet earth. When seeing the first movie five years ago you wondered how they would get Agent K back into the line-up and in the movie, and how they would get agent L to drop out (which was done very stupidly by the way).

Anyway when a mysterious light is hidden on earth and the universe’s biggest bad-ass-lingerie-model comes looking for it, things get heated and the only man who knows how to stop it had his memory erased five years earlier. After bringing K back, the movie really picks up because of the on-screen duo between Smith and Jones.

What directory Barry Sonnenfeld seemed like he was doing for the the sequel was take the best parts of the first movie and give them bigger parts in the second. The highlight of the movie is Frank the Pug, who is giving a much elongated part in this sequel compared to his two minutes of screen time in the first. But, unfortunately, along with some of the better characters that are broadened, some of the same old jokes are returned and reversed to either A) try them again or B) see if anyone remembers. For the most part they clicked, but some, most the regurgitated stuff from before, didn’t work out so well and seemed to fall flat.

I was a bit concerned when I saw the initial trailer for the movie because it lacked the outstanding humor of the first, but I’m safe in saying that, while not as funny as the first, Men in Black II is a very funny movie and is the perfect mix between action and comedy.

My only complaint? The movie is over way to quickly. We got through five trailers, the movie, and half of the credits in under two hours which is far too short for a movie competing this summer for attention with so many dynamic movies, and those who already downloaded them from net (but that is another story). While I may have been very presumptuous when I stated this would be the biggest movie of the summer, it did break some records for a July 4th opening, and just may very well stay around to make a whole lot of money, but in the end it still can’t compare to the original, and not many things do.