Are You Afraid Of The Dark? (I Remember That Show on Snick)
I honestly do want to say that the Chronicles of Riddick was good for what it was supposed to be, but . . . I can’t. I’m sorry, folks, but I just did not enjoy that movie, on any level, whatsoever. Okay, so it was supposed to be an action/science-fiction movie starring a typical antihero and full of one-liners and explosions, not to mention impossible feats of impossible dare. It did that, and it did it alright, I guess, with decent CGI and plenty of special effects. Vin Diesel was all kinds of crazily strong and persistent in his quest to . . . Uh, his quest to, uh, erm, uhh . . . Be cool?
The plot was thin, as thin as a bulimic supermodel stranded in the Sahara, and about as transparent and flimsy as rice paper. The whole movie vastly lacked motivating forces, except for the big, obvious, mean guys with the black ships and laser guns — granted, that is a nice motivation, what with the planet-wide destruction. Still, there was a very cut-and-paste feeling to the scenes, with Riddick just being thrust, haphazardly and barely sensibly, from one scenario to the next, sometimes causing me to forget why Riddick was doing what he was doing. From being chased by mercenaries on a snowy planet, to being on planet Islam, to beating up soldiers, to being caught by mercenaries, to being thrust into a prison . . . In retrospect, I do remember why it was that he ended up where he did, but during the course of the movie, I was very strained to keep up with the plot holes that were laced together to resemble a plot.
The characters, the characters: oh, how I failed to give a flying fuck about any of them. Granted, and I’ve been using the word “granted” a lot in this review, I did not see Pitch Black, but I have a feeling I gathered the entire backstory from the exchanges of dialogue and thinly veiled references. Put pointblank, the characters were shallow, flat, unchanging, boring, undeveloped, and stock. There was little history given for any character beyond passing mention of some past event or circumstance, and none of them changed or acted in a way that did not perfectly fit into the archetype they had obviously been chosen to fulfill. Riddick was an antihero: dark, brooding, angry, anguished, silent, gruff, and Wolverine with interesting eyes. I hate to compare all antiheroes to Wolverine, but he was a great example of a successfully executed one; I refrain from making reference to Ash (Bruce Campbell) from Evil Dead because I did not particularly care about those cult classic films. Jack/Kira was the obviously jilted and overcompensating sidekick character trying to strike it out and make it on her own, but failing miserably without the protection of her mentor, Riddick. Vaco, while having the most retarded name for anything except for a vacuum cleaner or something related to a vacuum cleaner, was the loyal general full of ambition and dreams, but faithful to his superior to a near fault; that fault being his wife, what’s-her-bitch-name in the tight, revealing clothing, who whispered sweet notes of murder and betrayal into his helmeted ear. Vaco was Darth Vader, and bitch-whore was Lady McBeth, perhaps, if you wish to make analogies. It was all very tightly wrapped up in a simple box, if nothing else, and nothing inconvenienced the viewer by changing throughout the movie.
I feel as though I am being slightly hypocritical by writing a favourable review of Van Helsing and knocking Chronicles of Riddick, though. To be fair, there wasn’t anything spectacular about the characters or character development in Helsing, either, but I still liked it more. I think my biggest problem with Riddick that I didn’t have with Helsing was that I called the entire movie from the first 10 minutes of it, thereabout. I viewed Riddick in a strange, psychic vision that was about five or ten minutes ahead of present time, wherein I saw all things happen before they did and knew exactly what would transpire in the near future of the hardcore Mr. Riddick. Also, it would’ve been nice, not to give anything away, if there was a damn thing concluded in that movie, too — Hell, I’ll give them the liberty to be open for a sequel, but when Riddick was over I was left asking myself, “Did anything actually happen in the last two hours of this movie that had an impact on anything?” Yeah, okay, so Riddick went from having dreads to being bald . . . And?
What it comes down to, in short, is that the Chronicles of Riddick was meant to be light entertainment with action and, uh, action, but it failed to entertain me. It just wasn’t fun or enjoyable to watch, when I knew what was going to happen and I couldn’t find myself caring about any of the characters. Yeah, traumatic things happened, but to people that I never got to know or care for their well-being. Eh, death, and last-second heroics requires me to feel something for those involved, and I was not stirred. I want to give Riddick credit for being what it was, but I think a lot of other movies were the same thing, but a whole lot better, just possibly not as pretty and shiny about it; I give it a 67% Failure Rating. Better luck next movie.
Adios.
The plot was thin, as thin as a bulimic supermodel stranded in the Sahara, and about as transparent and flimsy as rice paper. The whole movie vastly lacked motivating forces, except for the big, obvious, mean guys with the black ships and laser guns — granted, that is a nice motivation, what with the planet-wide destruction. Still, there was a very cut-and-paste feeling to the scenes, with Riddick just being thrust, haphazardly and barely sensibly, from one scenario to the next, sometimes causing me to forget why Riddick was doing what he was doing. From being chased by mercenaries on a snowy planet, to being on planet Islam, to beating up soldiers, to being caught by mercenaries, to being thrust into a prison . . . In retrospect, I do remember why it was that he ended up where he did, but during the course of the movie, I was very strained to keep up with the plot holes that were laced together to resemble a plot.
The characters, the characters: oh, how I failed to give a flying fuck about any of them. Granted, and I’ve been using the word “granted” a lot in this review, I did not see Pitch Black, but I have a feeling I gathered the entire backstory from the exchanges of dialogue and thinly veiled references. Put pointblank, the characters were shallow, flat, unchanging, boring, undeveloped, and stock. There was little history given for any character beyond passing mention of some past event or circumstance, and none of them changed or acted in a way that did not perfectly fit into the archetype they had obviously been chosen to fulfill. Riddick was an antihero: dark, brooding, angry, anguished, silent, gruff, and Wolverine with interesting eyes. I hate to compare all antiheroes to Wolverine, but he was a great example of a successfully executed one; I refrain from making reference to Ash (Bruce Campbell) from Evil Dead because I did not particularly care about those cult classic films. Jack/Kira was the obviously jilted and overcompensating sidekick character trying to strike it out and make it on her own, but failing miserably without the protection of her mentor, Riddick. Vaco, while having the most retarded name for anything except for a vacuum cleaner or something related to a vacuum cleaner, was the loyal general full of ambition and dreams, but faithful to his superior to a near fault; that fault being his wife, what’s-her-bitch-name in the tight, revealing clothing, who whispered sweet notes of murder and betrayal into his helmeted ear. Vaco was Darth Vader, and bitch-whore was Lady McBeth, perhaps, if you wish to make analogies. It was all very tightly wrapped up in a simple box, if nothing else, and nothing inconvenienced the viewer by changing throughout the movie.
I feel as though I am being slightly hypocritical by writing a favourable review of Van Helsing and knocking Chronicles of Riddick, though. To be fair, there wasn’t anything spectacular about the characters or character development in Helsing, either, but I still liked it more. I think my biggest problem with Riddick that I didn’t have with Helsing was that I called the entire movie from the first 10 minutes of it, thereabout. I viewed Riddick in a strange, psychic vision that was about five or ten minutes ahead of present time, wherein I saw all things happen before they did and knew exactly what would transpire in the near future of the hardcore Mr. Riddick. Also, it would’ve been nice, not to give anything away, if there was a damn thing concluded in that movie, too — Hell, I’ll give them the liberty to be open for a sequel, but when Riddick was over I was left asking myself, “Did anything actually happen in the last two hours of this movie that had an impact on anything?” Yeah, okay, so Riddick went from having dreads to being bald . . . And?
What it comes down to, in short, is that the Chronicles of Riddick was meant to be light entertainment with action and, uh, action, but it failed to entertain me. It just wasn’t fun or enjoyable to watch, when I knew what was going to happen and I couldn’t find myself caring about any of the characters. Yeah, traumatic things happened, but to people that I never got to know or care for their well-being. Eh, death, and last-second heroics requires me to feel something for those involved, and I was not stirred. I want to give Riddick credit for being what it was, but I think a lot of other movies were the same thing, but a whole lot better, just possibly not as pretty and shiny about it; I give it a 67% Failure Rating. Better luck next movie.
Adios.
posted by c.Jay Wrong at
2:01 AM
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