I am a big fan of Pitch Black. It's much better than it had to be, and it shhowed a real talent behind the camera. It was also made great by one of the best openings I've ever seen, some neat monsters, and an engaging and charismatic anti-hero. It's ending was almost poetic. Not bad for a B-monster film.
I've been excited about Riddick for quite a while. Vin's star dimmed, and Below came out, was excellent, and Dimension/Miramax dumped it. But I remembered Twohy's skill. I remembered his creativity.
Both are on display in The Chronicles of Riddick. I found it to be a flawed, but extremely ambitious, cut-from-whole-cloth epic. My boy Scott Weinberg hosed me with a negative review, but I appreciate the wake-up call. I do not think it is nearly as bad as he described it. Nor is it the newest "cool thing".
It's tough to get a handle on, because there is a lot going on, some of it intersteing, some of it uninteresting, with a few real problems. But in the end, I enjoyed the film, and plan on purchasing it.
I feel Twohy made two significant errors, one storytelling, and one filmmaking.
Storytelling: I've seen this happen time and again in geekville. RA Salvatore's Drizzt, X-Men's Wolverine come to mind. DO NOT PUT YOUR PROTAGONIST ON SOME KIND OF BADASS PEDESTAL. It weakens the writing terribly. The author seems almost in love with the cool aspects of who he's writing, and allows it to affect the world around the character. He overdoes things. As strongbad would say (and does): "Too much of a good thing is awesome. Too much of an awesome thing is...stupid."
Riddick is a badass. Got it. Use that sparingly, and retain the mystery of it, the flavor. Too many Riddick lines and moves. Some good...some not so good.
Filmmaking: The action scenes were rather poor. A few were actually excellent, but most were disorienting or poorly shot. There was a lot of promise in most of them, however. Especially Kyra's (and why the name change?).
All of that said, the key word here is ambitious. This film is saved by Twohy's vision. There is a great deal to look at in the film, and amazingly, it's not cribbed from other places, or cobbled together out of hand-me-down sci-fi looks. This is the most creative visual sci-fi piece since The Fifth Element, and tops it in numerous places. The story is a fragment of a bigger story. I appreciated that. There should have been more backstory in the film, not on the website. I am all about starting the middle, but give the audience a life-raft. I understand there are two following films (that will probably never get made, unless this kills overseas, as I hope it does). I'd pay to see them.
If anyone here has ever read the excellent sci-fi novel Armor, Riddick's character reminded me of Felix (minus the cooler Felix past). If you didn't...too bad. It's a great book. His legendary ability to fight back and pull things off is well-done...minus the worship bit I discussed earlier.
The other issue I had with the film (and it didn't bother me, but it is disjointing) is it starts one place, does a lot, goes somewhere else for most of the rest of the film (completely unrelated), and then finishes basically where it began and closing out that story (before opening another). A bit brazen for a big-budget film.
The acting was good, all things considered.
The direction and effects were creative and excellent, and are the highlight of the film.
It's not a film for everyone, as evidenced by the reviews
It certainly has some flaws. But I found a lot to like about it.
7.5/10,
Chuck
