10 Universally Disliked Blockbusters (That Really Aren’t That Bad)

Christian Bale has said he’s embarrassed by most of the films he made following American Psycho, and watching Captain Corelli’s Mandolin or Shaft it’s hard to blame him. Another of those films is the forgotten blockbuster Reign Of Fire, where he and Matthew McConaughey team up to fight dragons in post-apocalyptic England.

The movie received middling reviews and weak box-office at the time, and people felt misled by the awesome poster, which featured dragons and helicopters dogfighting over the skies of London; this doesn’t happen anywhere in the movie. Instead, we get more of a moody character piece, where Bale and McConaughey’s dragon hunter butt heads over how to deal with the threat.

The dragons are rarely seen but are genuinely freaky creations when they arrive, McConaughey is awesome-tastic as the crazed hunter and it has a couple of insanely tense setpieces. Bale may not be proud of his work here, but it was early proof of his blockbuster leading man abilities.