Riddick

[sage_4]

Pre show thoughts:

As many of you (hopefully) realize, Chronicles of Riddick is, in fact, the sequel to what I always thought to be a very well made, if not atleast unique scifi film named Pitch Black. Though it is nothing new to have a sci fi film with a realistic/independent feel to it, that kind of thing doesnt seem to exist these days. Pitch Black was a character driven suspense type of film with a simple yet effective story, creative direction, and few and far between special effects shots that did their job well. The part I loved most about it was the fact that it created this realistic future with believable technology/social systems, but the entire movie takes place on this one lifeless planet.

Anywho, I should stop babbling about a decent film and start talking about Riddick. Although I loved the prequel, I had low expectations considering that I had seen more special effects shots in the commercials than I had seen in all of Pitch Black. This made me think that this movie got a little more money than it needed. I didnt intend to go to this movie, but was dragged along with friends.

The Film:

The thing that truly made this movie unlikeable (among many other things) was the fact that, it actually had some interesting ideas! There were a few (very few) scenes that I actually enjoyed, and they seemed to be completely seperate from the rest of the movie. But that makes it all the worse, because it makes me think that somewhere, inside this piece of trash, there was a salvagable story, once. And that makes me sad.

So where did this movie go wrong? In a word: too much. Too many completely cg shots, too much lightning fast editing, too many strobe lights, too many giant ugly grey sets (too many settings, in fact). This movie had no patience! First we're here, then here, then here. It's not that the audience couldnt stop and breathe, it wasn't like there was too much plot. It's just that we werent on any one given scene for more than a minute or so, and for the love of god, the average shot was maybe 2 seconds long! Whoever made this movie piled so much gaudy crap on top that it completely covered up the tiny ounce of potential that this movie had, and then the fate was sealed by the fact that there was absolutely no character development for anyone.

I won't bother to summarize the plot too much, I'm sure you've seen the commercials: necromongers, a crazy armada like cult, are wiping out planets unless they convert to their religion. Riddick is kinda recruited to beat them all (Fight evil w/ evil omg!!), I'm sure you can guess what happens. The plot was fairly ambiguous, and characters are just kinda dropped in all over the place. But the worst part was the lack of continuity. All of the technology, and the social structures that I spoke of from pitch black, all gone. Suddenly, although Riddick takes place only 5 years after Pitch Black, technology has advanced lightyears ahead, and the governments and worlds/characters seem cartoony, instead of the realistic administratioin/military controlled type of setup that was in pitch black (also, as I believe, earth existed in Pitch Black, but is never mentioned in here). And the few characters that survived the last movie are also inconsistent. That small girl pretending to be a boy, now she is in her late twenties and is like a super hot mass murderer. But Riddick and the holy man have changed little. I may be a pretty messy person, but I can be anal about some things, and incongruence is one of them.

Final Summation

I'm sure this film will make gobs of money, and those gobs will go towards making another garbage film. This pattern won't stop until we the people stop going to bad movies. No one is allowed to complain, not even me, we are fueling the machine. (I announced my retirement from films that I knew would be bad before hand after Van Helsing, was only dragged back to this because other people payed for me, and I was very bored). Soon enough Hollywood will go into another renaissance, but until then, go to your local independent theatre, rent some older movies, and seek out less publicized films....


Please.

Edit: I realize I will get flamed for having taste. Have at me good fellows! It's all in good fun!

[FreeFall]

I skimmed your review.. personally I don't want to go see it. It looks like they're trying to purposly make it a 'b' type movie. . except that they have too much money to do that well.

[fritoman]

the movie looked interesting to me except for having Vin Diesel, he is the one that will keep me form seeing this one. Maybe when it comes out on DVD in 3 months is when I will watch it.

[GRITS]

I wanted to go see it this weekend but might as well save my money for something different and wait for it to hit dvd.

[_Acid_Head_]

Too bad you didn't like it, I enjoyed it. Vin Diesel isn't a bad actor (if you think so, you obviously haven't seen his roles in Saving Private Ryan, Iron Giant, Knockaround Guys, and Boiler Room), he's just been in a lot of bad movies that have given him a bad rep, also, as we've all noticed, he doesn't do the best acting in action roles, it's not his strongest point as an actor.

Pitch Black wasn't a GREAT movie, and neither was this, really it was just what I was expecting, a mediocre, entertaining sci-fi flick, worth my 10 bux.

[sage_4]

So all that should ever be expected is mediocre?


btw, i have always been a member of "VDAGA" (vin diesel is actually a good actor), but tis true, he does mostly crap.

[Wha?]

Of course we should only ever expect mediocrity. I think it's pretty clear by now that good movies are few and far between, and that not any production team can throw one together, even if they have in the past.

[sage_4]

We should rise up and revolt against hollywood, demanding good, thought out movies.

[Squish]

yay for that!

[brokend]

good, thought-out movies??
tell me where to begin.

in any case, yesterday i went to go see a documentary that everyone should see. especially the McDonalds inclined. it was called Super Size Me, in which Morgan Spurlock performs an experiment on his body by eating three square McDonalds meals for 30 days to see the effects, and stand up the a statement that puts the terms "McDonalds" and "healthy diet" in the same sentence. The dude almost DIES. and the stats are frightening. Go see this movie. if i hadn't, i wouldn't have learned that there are more calories in a McDonalds yogurt parfait with granola than one of its hot fudge or caramel sundaes. and there are only five things on the menu that don't have sugar in them, including bottled water and french fries. lemme give you a hint: their salad is not one of these five items.
ugh, it was disgusting, but true, down to my own clogged arteries.

you want to go see a good, well thought-out movie? go see Jim Jarmusch's "Coffee and Cigarrettes," or, if it is still available in your town, Kaufmann's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." Hell, i'd settle for that damned Harry Potter movie over the Chronicles of a Hollywood Budget.
I'm proud of ya, sage. i'm glad you have class.

[[CAKE]anonymity]

It was your basic money grabber, appeal to the masses blowing stuff up, movie. So I liked it.

[sage_4]

Eternal sunshine was the last movie i saw in the theatre that was worth its nickel. Before that LOTR, but not because it was a great movie, but because it was a great book.

I warned you, Reinth, that i did not want to see it. And you guys just had to pay for my ticket. You reap what you sow, my friend. You of all people should know that. ^_^

As for me, I've been trying to wash the theatre's bad taste out of my mouth by reaching into the past for movies. Unfortunately my grab bag of old and foreign films is condensing by the day. And with such trash as Alien vs Predator, Anaconda 2, The Exorcist: The Beginning, I think this summer is going to be crap for theatre going. I think I'm going to fall into some books this summer. In a few years Hollywood is probably going to implode again. I can wait a few years.

[[CAKE]anonymity]

AVP2 looks quite entertaining. I'm looking forward to the bourne supremcy as well as spider man 2. Saved also looks quite funny. I think this summer will be pretty good for movies.

[sage_4]

It's a summer of sequels and remakes! I was personally insulted watching those previews! Oceans 12 was enough to make me sick. They're sequeling a remake that they changed to begin with! WTF!?!? And the manchurian candidate? They are basing the movie on the script and not the book, they replaced Frank Sinatra with Denzel Washington, and they replaced China with a Corporation. That movie is not supposed to be ripped out of context, and yet here it is, smack dab in the middle of 2004.

Also, I'm sick of hollywood shitting on the Alien series. The first one was amazing, the second one was a little cliche (well, at the time it wasnt) and simplistic, but still a great movie. The third one had amazing potential, but all of the production battles between Fincher and the producers killed it's small chance at being decent, and the 4th one was just plain wierd. (BTW Brokend, I still don't see what you do in the bald Weaver, I'm all about the long curly hair of Alien, none of that mom look from Aliens).

I liked predator one, it was cool, great effects for the time. The second one was kinda dumb.

Why do we need these movies to fight eachother? It sounds a lot like freddy versus jason, but nobody actually liked those movies to begin with anyway. Why do we keep getting shown distorted and horrible versions of the exact same movie, over and over again? I demand a NEW movie!


spiderman is one of my few guilty pleasures though. I mean, it's spider man! You cant ***I'm Stupid for Swearing*** that up!

[[CAKE]anonymity]

I robot looks pretty cool to, but I will have to wait to hear a review about it. Oceans 12? I do like hiest movies so that might be good. Hollywood is going pretty overboard with the comic book movies but they are good stories and sequels actually work because there is so much material in them. The only drawback to AVP is that the idea for it was from a video game, and those movies are never really any good.

[brokend]

ok, there are a few movies this summer that have been OK, but no more. Troy was a decent movie for the literate, not because of the acting, or directorial technique, but instead because of the screenwriter. it was just well done, when you consider what it could have been.
Spiderman looks OK, but it would be a stretch to call it a great movie. Same thing with Alien vs Predator. But i look forward to them both, because they are both valued childhood items that still drag my maturity level back to "toddler."
A movie that looks great that i'm also looking forward to is "Garden State," written and directed by Zach Braff, the dude from that "Scrubs" series. it looks surreal and nutty all around. can't wait. and of course, the highly anticipated left wing hurricane that was refused by Disney distribution houses. Michael Moore's likely super-bias "Farenheit 9/11."
and to my credit, SIGOURNEY WEAVER IS A SIZZLIN' BALD BABE. many should be able to give me credit for that statement's validity.

[sage_4]

I can't wait to see garden state and farenheit 9/11. they coming in town any time soon?

I have to dissagree with you about troy, though. The movie deviated so much from the original literature (i.e. The Iliad) that it was a little alienating. They turned a 10 year war into, like, a month. They also wrote out the gods, making them "simply an old religion" instead of actual characters, real within the story. The plot was also a little strange as well. I didnt know who to root for, they changed the characters around so much, i liked them all, except for agamemnon (who was actually a good man in the original story). Still, I didnt hate the movie. I thought it was very beautiful, and I have a soft spot for ancient greek tales (i also have the same thing for zombie movies).

Speaking of beautiful movies, you need to see Elephant immediately if you havent already!

That goes for the rest of you as well.

[brokend]

ok, here's my thinking behind troy:
yes, they did write the gods out of the movie, but imagine if they didn't. the opening scene of the movie would have been all of the gods sitting around having a feast, and one of them getting jealous because they weren't popular enough to get invited. blah. it would have been corny and transparent. with the gods, there would be far less subtlety. i'm sure it's just the trend lately, but they tried to take a fantastic tradgedy and turn it into something that could have happened in reality. and during the credits, they claimed only to have been "inspired" by the Iliad. they were prone to cut scenes out.
what made me most upset was the fact that they added characters for heterosexual sex scenes, and mangled other characters to get rid of the homosexual sex scenes. sorry, but according to the iliad, achilles didn't make love to anyone but patroclus, who in the movie transformed from his lover, to his beloved cousin. how viciously american.
all in all, it was a good break from the story that's told all over the place, and much more exciting. great choreography, that is. the only thing i fear is that they obviously left the box offices open for at least two more sequels, when they blatantly dwadle over Odysseus' character, and when Paris (who by the end of the movie ends up suddenly heroic) gives the "trojan sword" to Aeneas, who will spawn his own epic poem involving the foundation of Rome. wait til next year, kiddies. just you wait and see.

[[CAKE]anonymity]

I can't wait to see garden state and farenheit 9/11.

when are they coming out anyway? (realised you said town, but im wondering if you guys have to wait longer or something, forgive my ignorance)

[sage_4]

I can forgive your ignorance, but the ignorance of this town will take much more. We only have one "independant theatre" in town. And by "independant" i mean "not controlled by large faceless corporations and told exactly what to show." This is the theatre that Brokend works at. So all independant/foreign films are funneled through this 2 screen theatre, and we miss a lot of things. I'm hoping that farneheit 9/11 will be at the larger theatres so as many ppl can see it as possible, but if not, I'm assuming it will be at brokends. Garden state is a train that im afraid has already sailed.

[brokend]

9/11's release date is June 25th, and it WILL be going to those damned multiplexes for mass appeal to the public. mo money, foo.
garden state's release date, last i heard, was july 30th, and i don't think it has changed. has a great cast. anyone here watch "Scrubs" on NBC? Zach Braff, the main character, wrote directed this movie, which also stars Natalie Portman, Ian Holm (better known, i'm afraid, as 'Bilbo Baggins'), and Peter Sarsgaard, who if you've never heard of him, you should, because this guy is an amazing actor. top notch.;)

[sage_4]

I had read about garden state just before it was at sundance. then I saw a preview of it just before i saw eternal sunshine (i like that whole selection process of trailers, people who liked "Eternal Sunshine" will also like other good movies) and was all psyched to see it. I just assumed i had missed it because, well, we miss a lot of things here.

Edit: Bilbo Baggins? More like PSYCHO ROBOT ASH!!!! I knew that name looked familiar.