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Pitch Black was a diverting little movie about a spaceship that crash-lands
on a planet with these night creatures that look like a cross between
Alien's xenomorphs and Starship Troopers' bugs. One by one they get picked
off but eventually three of them make it off the planet alive, one of them
being Riddick (Vin Diesel), a convict who can see in the dark.
This movie has three times the budget and acts as a sequel to Pitch Black,
expanding the universe Riddick lives in. And what a silly universe it is.
This movie reminded me of The Phantom Menace more than anything else,
except The Phantom Menace's plot was more decipherable. Here we're not
really sure what's happening nor are we ever given reason to care. There's
this group called the Necromongers which act like the Nazis cross-bred with
the Borg. The leader is called Lord Marshal, and he and his group go from
planet to planet wearing their metal uniforms with frowny faces on their
shoulders looking to assimilate or kill everyone on every planet they
visit. Why? Beats me.
The names in this universe are so sophomoric. Planets have names like
Helion Prime and Crematoria. Races have names like Furions, Elementals and
of course, Necromongers. The Necromongers dream of finding the
Underverse. The what? Did David Twohy's kids help him name everything?
The characters are baffling as well. Why bother casting Judi Dench if
she's going to disappear literally halfway through the movie? Karl Urban,
who inherited good geek karma as Eomer from Lord of the Rings, blows it all
here with his embarrassing line-reads as a Macbeth type thinking of
betraying the Lord Marshal. Thandie Newton at least seems to be winking at
the camera in her Lady Macbeth role.
Here's one big problem my friend and I talked about in the parking lot
after the movie: at this big prison, the warden pays bounty hunters for
his capture, and apparently other prisons also pay for captives, so somehow
the wardens are able to profit off of certain prisoners, I gather. Then
comes this scene where he randomly releases cave wolves into the prison to
eat and kill whatever prisoners they catch. Now why the smurf would he do
this on a random, regular basis when he's paying money to get these prisoners?
Incidentally, the cave wolves are horrible CGI. They're like the
Ghostbuster terror dogs cross-bred with the Princess Bride's Rats of
Unusual Size. All is forgiven with the Day After Tomorrow wolves compared
with these beasts.
The fight scenes are chopped up beyond comprehension, which I found to be
laziness on the director's part. Might as well be slide-shows of the
fights for all the sense they make. Maybe even some Batman sound effects
when bad guys get punched. BAM! SOCKO!
Oh, and there's a scene where they try to outrun the sun.
And don't get me started on the painfully inept voice-over dialogue.
The ending leaves it wide open for a sequel, but how can we expected to
care about what happens next when it's not really clearly at any point
what's happening at all? Rated PG-13 for action violence and one F-word.
on a planet with these night creatures that look like a cross between
Alien's xenomorphs and Starship Troopers' bugs. One by one they get picked
off but eventually three of them make it off the planet alive, one of them
being Riddick (Vin Diesel), a convict who can see in the dark.
This movie has three times the budget and acts as a sequel to Pitch Black,
expanding the universe Riddick lives in. And what a silly universe it is.
This movie reminded me of The Phantom Menace more than anything else,
except The Phantom Menace's plot was more decipherable. Here we're not
really sure what's happening nor are we ever given reason to care. There's
this group called the Necromongers which act like the Nazis cross-bred with
the Borg. The leader is called Lord Marshal, and he and his group go from
planet to planet wearing their metal uniforms with frowny faces on their
shoulders looking to assimilate or kill everyone on every planet they
visit. Why? Beats me.
The names in this universe are so sophomoric. Planets have names like
Helion Prime and Crematoria. Races have names like Furions, Elementals and
of course, Necromongers. The Necromongers dream of finding the
Underverse. The what? Did David Twohy's kids help him name everything?
The characters are baffling as well. Why bother casting Judi Dench if
she's going to disappear literally halfway through the movie? Karl Urban,
who inherited good geek karma as Eomer from Lord of the Rings, blows it all
here with his embarrassing line-reads as a Macbeth type thinking of
betraying the Lord Marshal. Thandie Newton at least seems to be winking at
the camera in her Lady Macbeth role.
Here's one big problem my friend and I talked about in the parking lot
after the movie: at this big prison, the warden pays bounty hunters for
his capture, and apparently other prisons also pay for captives, so somehow
the wardens are able to profit off of certain prisoners, I gather. Then
comes this scene where he randomly releases cave wolves into the prison to
eat and kill whatever prisoners they catch. Now why the smurf would he do
this on a random, regular basis when he's paying money to get these prisoners?
Incidentally, the cave wolves are horrible CGI. They're like the
Ghostbuster terror dogs cross-bred with the Princess Bride's Rats of
Unusual Size. All is forgiven with the Day After Tomorrow wolves compared
with these beasts.
The fight scenes are chopped up beyond comprehension, which I found to be
laziness on the director's part. Might as well be slide-shows of the
fights for all the sense they make. Maybe even some Batman sound effects
when bad guys get punched. BAM! SOCKO!
Oh, and there's a scene where they try to outrun the sun.
And don't get me started on the painfully inept voice-over dialogue.
The ending leaves it wide open for a sequel, but how can we expected to
care about what happens next when it's not really clearly at any point
what's happening at all? Rated PG-13 for action violence and one F-word.
