Of all possible ways the world might end, that civilization might topple and that life as we know it cease to exist, perhaps one of the least likely is Apocalypse by Dragon. But come on, if we have to go out in a blaze of something, wouldn’t you rather it were the breath of a magical, mythical creature than something so prosaic as a nuclear bomb or whatever?

Our tale is set in the year 2020. It has been twelve years since new underground excavation in London awakened the first dragon from long hibernation. (It was dragons that killed the dinosaurs, don’t you know.) As a youngster, Quinn (Christian Bale) had been there to witness the rebirth of these fearsome creatures; now, he is leader of a small outpost of bedraggled and starving survivors in rural England, who have cleverly chosen an ancient castle as their home base, and now the dragons rule the world.

He has a scruffy beard. That’s how bedraggled these people are.

Reading by candlelight, harvesting crops and generally living in fear of -- yes, I’ll say it again -- dragons, is pretty much all these people have to look forward to, when into their lives strides the brash and butch Denton Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey), clad in a facsimile of army fatigues and claiming to be a dragon slayer. He brings with him a small army, among whom is pilot Alex Janssen (Izabella Scorupco), a beauty possessed of an intriguing European accent, and with more than a little of the Kara Thrace about her.

She’s our love interest, of course -- every dragon tale needs one -- but she’s no terrified maiden, no damsel in distress, but a solider in her own right, and it is she more than anything else that convinces Quinn to believe in Van Zan, that the dragons can be killed.

One thing? All the dragons that Van Zan and his crew have so far found have been female. The theory is that there is only one male, and if they can take him out, bye bye dragons.

By sheerest good luck, of course Quinn knows where the male is -- it’s in London, and damn it, it killed his mother. It is not the dragon whom he now warns to “prepare to die”, but Van Zan and his troops… Quinn has a healthy respect for this ruthless creature’s killing instincts, and is convinced that it will not only take out the entire small army that Van Zan commands, but come back and rain down fire on the castle inhabitants as well.

And what do you know? Snap.

So then it is up to Quinn to finally step in and take on the big bad father of all dragons – I bet the knights of yore wished they’d had some C4 when they were off questing for their ladies’ favors, and such – and in the end… lives are lost and the world is in ruins, but at last, there is hope. Hope for a future safe from the ever present threat of -- holy hell! -- dragons.

Okay, so it’s a little ridiculous. No, it’s a lot ridiculous, but shut up. Reign of Fire is nevertheless an incandescent action romp through a world devastated by a merciless and brutal force (think of the dragons as a metaphor for something, if that makes it seem less absurd to you), fuelled by terrific performances, top notch directing of the grip-them-by-their-throats-and-don’t-let-go school, an evocative score, and special effects that have held up extremely well in the almost ten years since this was made. It would be easy to dismiss this movie as a silly piece of fantasy nonsense, if one was inclined to do so, but that would be a mistake. For all its Pern-ian trappings, it really is just a terrific disaster movie: a post-apocalyptic rumination on just how useless many of us would be without technology, a study of fear, social engineering and consensus-led justice, and a true testament to the restorative powers of Gerard Butler’s impeccable comic timing, in his small but crucial role.

Plus, dude. It’s the end of the world caused by dragons. Who wouldn’t want to see that? Uh. As make-believe, anyway. But, I guess you never really know…

   -- Rachel Hyland