The Chronicles of Riddick «½
PG-13, 119m. 2004
Cast & Credits: Vin Diesel (Riddick), Colm Feore (Lord Marshal), Thandie Newton (Dame Vaako), Judi Dench (Aereon), Karl Urban (Vaako), Alexa Davalos (Kyra), Linus Roache (Purifier), Yorick van Wageningen (The Guv), Nick Chinlund (Toombs), Keith David (Imam). Written and directed by David Twohy.
I cannot help but wonder if the filmmakers behind "The Chronicles of Riddick", the sequel to Pitch Black (2000), approached their project with that of preparing a Thanksgiving feast for more than 20 people. From a technical standpoint the film, which has Vin Diesel reprising his role as an escaped convict with a pair of silvery glowing eyes, is a visual effects feast.
It's a two-hour computer-generated exercise filled with macabre looking set designs, gray armored costumes and alien ships that look like tall thin skyscrapers that boast menacing metallic faces on their sides.
The script is filled with such words like "Crematoria," "Necromonger" and "Elementals" that I have never heard before until now. Words in which I am convinced that if they were used on a regular basis, would likely find their way into some newly updated dictionary next year alongside such previous terms as "Barbara Walters" and "The View."
The film's impressive trailer made me think this just might be an imaginative, fun, science fiction popcorn movie filled with outer space battles between good and evil. If the trailer wasn't eye-catching, then certainly the poster was which I'd probably buy if I were still into collecting film memorabilia today.
The end result is a far cry from "The Arrival" (1996), director David Twohy's best science fiction film to date that starred Charlie Sheen as an astrologer who learns aliens are living among us. That film not only had an intriguingly clever premise having to do with global warming, it was also made on a very low budget.
Twohy's latest venture has all the makings of a tasty four-course meal, thus proving what happens when filmmakers are given $40 million to play with. What's missing from The Chronicles of Riddick, however, is the most important part: the turkey and the dressing. In this case, characters we care about and a good story worthy of our attention.
What we get instead is a dreary, depressing, action adventure/science fiction movie inspired by the eye-opening visual effects of the Star Wars movies combined with a series of quick fast-paced editing shots where we can barely tell what is going on. It's like watching another Michael Bay ("Pearl Harbor"-2001) production where the audience is literally bombarded with hundreds of explosions and lots of noise.
The script is filled with laughable lines in which Diesel's character tells a female leader (Thandie Newton) of the evil "Necromongers", saying, "It's been a long time since I've smelled beautiful." Now how would a woman react if I fed her such a line?
Then there is the painfully obvious one-liners like "That must be some sunrise" which one person comments as the sun shines its deadly, fiery rays on the prison planet "Crematoria" where the temperature is 700 degrees in sunlight and -300 degrees in the shade. The fact that Riddick and his escaped band of prisoners are able to walk on the scorched surface at such a hot temperature without being incinerated is only one of many unbelievable moments where I was left asking myself a slew of questions.
The ones left with saying more than just one line are given embarrassing dialogue, like Oscar winning British actress Judi Dench ("Shakespeare in Love"-1998). "In normal times, evil should be fought by good, but in times like this, well it should be fought by another kind of evil."
With lines like this, it made me wonder if Dench chose this project because she still has yet to hear from MGM on plans for another James Bond movie of which she's been playing 007's boss the past four films. Here, she plays Aereon, a member of the "Elementals" who exhibits the ability to vanish and reappear at will. Yet, her character still can't manage to slip out of the chains or the cell that the "Necromongers" hold her captive in.
It's Riddick who Aereon hopes can save the universe from the "Necromongers", a race of beings who fly from planet to planet wiping out entire civilizations who refuse to join them. They are led by "Lord Marshal" (Colm Feore) who has the ability to suck out a person's soul. He often boasts how he has been to the "Underverse" where he returned "half alive and half something else" which is the most we ever learn about such a place since the movie doesn't bother to take us there.
I won't argue that Vin Diesel was probably born to play action-adventure heroes or should I say anti-heroes. I liked him in "XXX" (2002) as a rogue rendition of James Bond and wished he had reprised his role as an illegal street racer in the satisfying but unnecessary sequel to The Fast and the Furious (2001).
The trouble with his role in "The Chronicles of Riddick" is that it's a one-note performance filled with forgettable one-liners like "I am the monster", "Are you afraid of the dark?" and "I can kill you with my teacup." It's a role that could have easily been played and uttered by anyone from Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger to The Rock.
Stallone and Schwarzenegger, though, often played characters that made audiences want to root for them. Diesel's Riddick is seen as more of a loner than anything else which brought me to the most troubling question the film presented. How do you root for a title character, who very early on makes it quite clear that all he wants in the universe is to simply be left alone?
©6/14/04
PG-13, 119m. 2004
Cast & Credits: Vin Diesel (Riddick), Colm Feore (Lord Marshal), Thandie Newton (Dame Vaako), Judi Dench (Aereon), Karl Urban (Vaako), Alexa Davalos (Kyra), Linus Roache (Purifier), Yorick van Wageningen (The Guv), Nick Chinlund (Toombs), Keith David (Imam). Written and directed by David Twohy.
It's a two-hour computer-generated exercise filled with macabre looking set designs, gray armored costumes and alien ships that look like tall thin skyscrapers that boast menacing metallic faces on their sides.
The script is filled with such words like "Crematoria," "Necromonger" and "Elementals" that I have never heard before until now. Words in which I am convinced that if they were used on a regular basis, would likely find their way into some newly updated dictionary next year alongside such previous terms as "Barbara Walters" and "The View."
The film's impressive trailer made me think this just might be an imaginative, fun, science fiction popcorn movie filled with outer space battles between good and evil. If the trailer wasn't eye-catching, then certainly the poster was which I'd probably buy if I were still into collecting film memorabilia today.
The end result is a far cry from "The Arrival" (1996), director David Twohy's best science fiction film to date that starred Charlie Sheen as an astrologer who learns aliens are living among us. That film not only had an intriguingly clever premise having to do with global warming, it was also made on a very low budget.
Twohy's latest venture has all the makings of a tasty four-course meal, thus proving what happens when filmmakers are given $40 million to play with. What's missing from The Chronicles of Riddick, however, is the most important part: the turkey and the dressing. In this case, characters we care about and a good story worthy of our attention.
What we get instead is a dreary, depressing, action adventure/science fiction movie inspired by the eye-opening visual effects of the Star Wars movies combined with a series of quick fast-paced editing shots where we can barely tell what is going on. It's like watching another Michael Bay ("Pearl Harbor"-2001) production where the audience is literally bombarded with hundreds of explosions and lots of noise.
The script is filled with laughable lines in which Diesel's character tells a female leader (Thandie Newton) of the evil "Necromongers", saying, "It's been a long time since I've smelled beautiful." Now how would a woman react if I fed her such a line?
Then there is the painfully obvious one-liners like "That must be some sunrise" which one person comments as the sun shines its deadly, fiery rays on the prison planet "Crematoria" where the temperature is 700 degrees in sunlight and -300 degrees in the shade. The fact that Riddick and his escaped band of prisoners are able to walk on the scorched surface at such a hot temperature without being incinerated is only one of many unbelievable moments where I was left asking myself a slew of questions.
The ones left with saying more than just one line are given embarrassing dialogue, like Oscar winning British actress Judi Dench ("Shakespeare in Love"-1998). "In normal times, evil should be fought by good, but in times like this, well it should be fought by another kind of evil."
With lines like this, it made me wonder if Dench chose this project because she still has yet to hear from MGM on plans for another James Bond movie of which she's been playing 007's boss the past four films. Here, she plays Aereon, a member of the "Elementals" who exhibits the ability to vanish and reappear at will. Yet, her character still can't manage to slip out of the chains or the cell that the "Necromongers" hold her captive in.
It's Riddick who Aereon hopes can save the universe from the "Necromongers", a race of beings who fly from planet to planet wiping out entire civilizations who refuse to join them. They are led by "Lord Marshal" (Colm Feore) who has the ability to suck out a person's soul. He often boasts how he has been to the "Underverse" where he returned "half alive and half something else" which is the most we ever learn about such a place since the movie doesn't bother to take us there.
I won't argue that Vin Diesel was probably born to play action-adventure heroes or should I say anti-heroes. I liked him in "XXX" (2002) as a rogue rendition of James Bond and wished he had reprised his role as an illegal street racer in the satisfying but unnecessary sequel to The Fast and the Furious (2001).
The trouble with his role in "The Chronicles of Riddick" is that it's a one-note performance filled with forgettable one-liners like "I am the monster", "Are you afraid of the dark?" and "I can kill you with my teacup." It's a role that could have easily been played and uttered by anyone from Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger to The Rock.
Stallone and Schwarzenegger, though, often played characters that made audiences want to root for them. Diesel's Riddick is seen as more of a loner than anything else which brought me to the most troubling question the film presented. How do you root for a title character, who very early on makes it quite clear that all he wants in the universe is to simply be left alone?
©6/14/04
