Wanted to do this in the comments, but that window is just too small. So here goes, more thoughts on Reign of Fire:

First of all, I have to correct myself. Contrary to my assertions yesterday, the special effects in Reign of Fire are NOT nominated for an Academy Award, though I consider them better than the nominated Attack of the Clones, those effects were just obnoxious. I'd rather have special effects blending in with the story instead of yelling: "Hey, look at me! I'm a special effect! Neat, aren't I??" So, yes, they were rather well done and I'll also give leeway because of the camera work and set design.

However:

The plot was weak at best in the first place. In addition, its holes were the size of the hole in the ozone layer. Maybe they were there when they wrote the script, maybe they developed because they cut scenes during production, maybe they were cut out of the finished film because of test audience reaction. While I, too, think the idea was good in the first place it was totally swamped by the cheesiness of the whole thing.

The characters were obnoxious als well as the actors portraying them. Underdeveloped, too. Why should I care about the guy losing his "best friend" when I haven't really seen them interact with each other? And ridiculous.

The real problem in my opinion is that the dragons were underdeveloped. It's a movie ABOUT them in the first place, but you get to see only glimpses of them. I'm not griping about not enough special effects, I'm griping about the use of the existing special effects. You see dragons attacking people, torching things and generally moseying about, but you never get their "motives". While that might be asking a little bit much for a movie about predators, I think it would have added to the plot if you knew why they were hunting people (because they really had no reason to, they were living on ash apparently). A shred of intelligence might not have hurt. Or more "dragon perspective" (though I suspect that was one of the things that was cut). But that's usually one of my main gripes. In my opinion it's the "evil" characters that need to convince me.
Example: Give me a bad movie and put Alan Rickman in it and I'll gladly watch it. Robin Hood comes to mind. (Yes, Alan Rickman also is prone to overacting, but at least it's fun to watch him do it.) I also really liked him in Die Hard, by the way, but that movie also had Bruce Willis at his best...
Contrary Example: Fifth Element. Bad Guy? Big-ass black hole trying to take over the universe. Why? Don't ask, don't tell. Yawn. Plus, Gary Oldman's evil character makes absolutely no sense in that movie.

In general the movie was just boring. Partly because of the "greyness" of the whole thing, partly because of the aforementioned lack of plot and characters. And that's the main point. I don't mind mindless action, but boring is not what an action movie should be.