I watched Starship troopers and Reign of Fire last night. One of those is a very good film. I’m going to talk to you about the other one.

I’d not seen Reign of Fire before, and I was genuinely confused how such a dull film could have such an amazing cast. The entire time I was watching Christian Bale do an English accent – which is weird enough in itself – I was wondering about how, exactly, a man who was in this film gets other jobs.

Don’t get me wrong, everyone in the film acted their hearts out, but surely when that resume comes across your desk you must think what, the guy from that awful dragon film?

There have been films that have killed entire careers, and watching Reign of Fire made me wonder exactly what it is that makes a film one of those. What are the qualities a career derailing film must have over, say, just a bad film?

And then… then I opened TV Tropes. So begins the tale of my eventual death, malnourished and wide-eyed, page after page of trivia being burned into my eye sockets.