For awhile, Reign of Fire showed the potential to be a movie I could really enjoy. After dragons emerge in the year 2002, they have almost taken over the earth by the year 2020. As I watched Quinn (Christian Bale) lead one of the remaining human communities in its search for a secure hiding place from these monsters, I thought a story about human survival seemed to be developing. Holed up in a castle fortress on the English countryside, members of Quinn's group struggle to obtain food without being exposed to the winged beasts, while doing their best to keep up their hope and spirits. In one funny scene, Quinn and his friend even re-enact part of a certain famous fantasy movie for the entertainment of the children – a great way to show how movies continue the historic tradition of passing along memorable stories throughout generations.

As I was thinking about the movie's thoughtful presentation of how people respond to their basic needs, the first dragon encounter occurred and it blew me away. Reign of Fire's cinematographer, Adrian Biddle, employs a washed-out, misty look that enhances the story's foggy atmosphere. It also serves another purpose -- to filter the look of the dragons, making them seem shadowy and real. They don't appear to be computer-generated at all.

And then came the skydiving scene. My heart began to sink – and rightly so. From that point on, improbable events followed contrived events. No matter how fantastic Reign of Fire looked, its story was making no sense at all. Recently I've become rather forgiving of careless story construction, but with this movie I couldn't overlook its blatant lack of logic. For instance, why, in a land infested with dragons, do our heroes always happen upon only one monster at a time? How did a helicopter, with its high-noise level and fragile nature, survive intact all this time without getting demolished by one of the flame-throwing beasts? Why did a dragon who wiped out a whole army of men with his scorching breath hesitate to do the same to a lone human facing him one-on-one? And so on and so on.

I wanted to ignore such questions and just concentrate on having a good time watching the action sequences. But I couldn’t forget that ridiculous skydiving scene involving a man jumping out of a helicopter to lure a dragon away from the vehicle. It was supposed to demonstrate how warriors lead by Van Zan (Matthew McConaughey) take down a dragon, but it was impossible to take seriously.

In a way, that skydiving scene illustrates the weird dichotomy Reign of Fire presents. It's actually a well-staged set piece and would be quite involving if not so impossible to accept. The rest of the movie also displays this split personality. Despite how much the actors are into their roles, their characters are presented with solutions too hard to swallow. And despite the awesome look of the dragons, one can't help wondering why they needed to be dragons at all – as long as the creatures could breathe fire, any monsters would do (space aliens? giant spiders?). This movie adds little to dragon lore.

Reign of Fire is indeed a mixed bag. Those who don’t worry about logic might really enjoy it. For the rest of us, we'll have to make do with action-for-action's-sake and the praiseworthy visual effects. Those dragons sure do look good.

(Review also posted on www.windowtothemovies.com)

Released by Touchstone Pictures and rated "PG-13" for intense action violence.