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[Willco]

His review sounds more like a lament and his criticisms are few and far between. It's like, he's just talking to himself. It's weird. Maybe he's on the fence. Read on...

THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK / ** (PG-13)

June 11, 2004

Richard B. Riddick: Vin Diesel
Lord Marshal: Colm Feore
Kyra: Alexa Davalos
Vaako: Karl Urban
Dame Vaako: Thandie Newton
Aereon: Judi Dench
Toombs: Nick Chinlund
Tony Nesteravich: Chris Astoyan
Logan: Christina Cox

Universal presents a film directed by David Twohy. Written by David Twohy, Jim Wheat and Ken Wheat. Running time: 118 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for intense sequences of violent action and some language).

BY ROGER EBERT

In normal times, evil should be fought by good, but in times like this, well, it should be fought by another kind of evil.

So says a character named Aereon in the opening moments of "The Chronicles of Riddick," a futuristic battle between a fascist misfit and a fascist master race. The opening shot shows a gargantuan steel face that looks like Mussolini after a facelift, and when the evil Necromongers rally to hail their Lord Marshal, it looks like they've been studying "The Triumph of the Will."

Against this intergalactic tribe stands one man, a man with the somewhat anticlimactic name of Richard B. Riddick. He is one of the few surviving Furions, fierce warriors who have, alas, mostly been captured and turned into Necromongers. Such is his prowess that with merely his flesh and blood he can defeat and capture a Necromonger fighter ship. What a guy.

Riddick, played by Vin Diesel, is a character we first encountered in "Pitch Black," the 2000 film by the same director, David Twohy. Although a few other characters repeat from that film, notably Abu "Imam" al-Walid (Keith David), there's no real connection between them, apart from Riddick's knack of finding himself on absurdly inhospitable planets. Here he fights for life on Crematoria, a planet whose blazing sun rockets over the horizon every 15 minutes or so and bakes everything beneath it. That you can shield yourself from it behind rocks is helpful, although it begs the question of why, since the atmosphere is breathable, the air is not super-heated.

But never mind. The Necromongers want everybody to be a Necromonger, and they line up behind the Lord Marshal (Colm Feore), who alone among his race has visited the Underverse. Aereon tells us he returned "half alive and half ... something else." This Aereon, she's awfully well-informed, and has a way of materializing out of thin air. She's a member of the race of Elementals, a fact I share with you since I have no idea what an Elemental is, or was, or wants to be.

Her character is one of several who are introduced with great fanfare and then misplaced. There's also a big-eyed, beautiful little girl named Ziza (Alexis Llewellyn), who keeps asking Riddick if he will fight the monsters, and Riddick keeps looking like he may have a heart of stone but this little girl melts it, and we're all set up for a big scene of monster-bashing and little-girl-saving that somehow never comes. (In this movie, a setup is as good as a payoff, since the last shot clearly establishes that there will be a sequel, and we can find out about all the missing stuff then.)

"The Chronicles of Riddick" is above all an exercise in computer-generated effects, and indeed the project represents the direction action movies are taking, as its human actors (or their digital clones) are inserted into manifestly artificial scenes that look like frames from the darkest of superhero comic books. The jolly reds, yellows and blues of the classic Superman and Spider-Man have been replaced in these grim days with black and gunmetal gray.

"Chronicles" doesn't pause for much character development, and is in such a hurry that even the fight scenes are abbreviated chop-chop sessions. There are a lot of violent fight scenes (the movie is made of them, which explains the PG-13 rating), but never do we get a clear idea of the spatial locations of the characters or their complete physical movements. Twohy breaks the fights down into disconnected flashes of extreme action in closeup, just as a comic book would, and maybe this is a style. It's certainly no more boring than most conventional CGI fight scenes.

I think the Lord Marshal wants to conquer all planets colonized by humans and make them Necromongers, but I was never sure that Richard B. Riddick didn't approve of that. Riddick seems more angered that there is a bounty on his head, and when he wreaks vengeance against the Necromongers, it's personal. His travails are intercut with the story of Vaako and Dame Vaako (Karl Urban and Thandie Newton) who want to overthrow the Lord Marshal, although whether they constitute a movement or just a coterie, I cannot say.

Vin Diesel was born to play a character like Riddick, and he growls and scowls impressively. I like Diesel as an actor and trust he was born to play other, better, characters, in movies that make sense. None of the other actors do anything we couldn't do if we looked like them.

Films like "The Chronicles of Riddick" gather about them cadres of fans who obsess about every smallest detail, but somehow I don't think "Riddick" will make as many converts as "The Matrix." In fact, I owe an apology to fans of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

When Richard Roeper reviewed the current two-disc DVD of "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King" on TV, I noted that a four-disc set of the movie was coming out later this year. He observed that the complete trilogy will come out on "an accordion size set that will take up the next six years of your life." I observed that "LOTR" fans should "get a life." I meant this as an affectionate ironic throwaway, but have received dozens of wounded e-mails from Ring devotees who believe "LOTR" has, indeed, given them a life, and after seeing "The Chronicles of Riddick," I agree. They have a life. The prospect of become an expert on "Riddick," in contrast, is too depressing to contemplate.

 

[Drinky Crow]

Haha, that movie sounds retarded. NECROMONGERS! ELEMENTALS! CREMATERIA! THE UNDERVERSE! It's a video game plot, minus any tongue-in-cheek sensibility. Any movie that can earnestly dicuss FURIONS with a striaght face deserves to be mocked.

 

[GuntherBait]

Haha, that movie sounds retarded. NECROMONGERS! ELEMENTALS! CREMATERIA! THE UNDERVERSE! It's a video game plot, minus any tongue-in-cheek sensibility.

Sounds more like a day in the life of all you love so dearly.

 

[Matlock]

Still sounds good to me.

 

[cubicle47b]

If you read many of his posts you'll realize that Doug really doesn't give a shit about the story in games. He plays strategy games and RPGs for their stat-building/battle systems.

Ebert made his review as disjointed as Chonicles of Riddick probably is.

 

[Matlock]

If you read many of his posts you'll realize that Doug really doesn't give a shit about the story. He plays strategy games and RPGs for their stat-building/battle systems.

You mean to say that Doug puts up a shield of false intellectualism and a front of contempt in an effort to fart in as many threads as he can?

NO WAY DUDE, NO WAY.

 

[GuntherBait]

If you read many of his posts you'll realize that Doug really doesn't give a shit about the story. He plays strategy games and RPGs for their stat-building/battle systems.

Ebert made his review as disjointed as Chonicles of Riddick probably is.

Well....

Looking at this objectively which anyone should really do, you have 3 types of people:

1.) People that are playing through the game, seen Pitch Black and are hyped to see this movie tonight.
2.) People that like Sci-Fi, but can't stand Vin Disel
3.) People that don't really care much about "action" flicks but might check this out because it looks midly retarded and it's good water cooler talk.

Doug, on the other hand falls into catogory #4 which is really a combo of #1 and #3 but doesn't want to admit it and is trying so hard to get us to value his comments here that we just..... can't help but laugh at his stupidity.

Oh well.

 

[Spectral Glider]

What's not to get? He's not on the fence at all, he doesn't like it. He doesn't like the writing, doesn't care for the tones, thinks there's nothing new with the special effects, thinks the surrounding characters and the actors who portray them are unexceptional and hates how the fight scenes were done. And, he more or less thinks Diesel wasted his time on this one. Which was the exact same feeling I had about Pitch Black.

 

[Agent Dormer]

I'm either gonna catch the sneak peak of Saved! or The Terminal instead of Riddick. All these reviews have made me believe my money would be better spent that way.

 

[Drinky Crow]

Actually, I fall into category #5) Chronicles looks fucking dumb -- seriously, who writes this shit -- and I can't believe anyone over the age of 16 would want to see it. Sorry, I hold sci-fi movies to the same standards I hold all others, and Chronicles is the nerd space opera equivalent of "New York Minute".

 

[Escape Goat]

Vin Diesel *yawn*

Should have made the movie "Faster and furiouserer"!

 

[cubicle47b]

Speaking of shitty movies what's up with Bill Murray being the voice of Garfield in Garfield: The Movie? Why would he do that? How do you go from movies like Rushmore and Lost in Translation to this?

 

[JackFrost2012]

Actually, I fall into category #5) Chronicles looks fucking dumb -- seriously, who writes this shit -- and I can't believe anyone over the age of 16 would want to see it. Sorry, I hold sci-fi movies to the same standards I hold all others, and Chronicles is the nerd space opera equivalent of "New York Minute".

IAWTP! Seriously, Riddick looks incredibly stupid. It's like the director thought, what if instead of exciting and cool, SF was ugly and boring? And embarassingly cliched, of course, but that goes without saying. Necromongers? Crematoria? How can you take any of this SHIT seriously?

 

[JackFrost2012]

Speaking of shitty movies what's up with Bill Murray being the voice of Garfield in Garfield: The Movie? Why would he do that? How do you go from movies like Rushmore and Lost in Translation to this?

 

[GuntherBait]

IAWTP! Seriously, Riddick looks incredibly stupid. It's like the director thought, what if instead of exciting and cool, SF was ugly and boring? And embarassingly cliched, of course, but that goes without saying. Necromongers? Crematoria? How can you take any of this SHIT seriously?

People like you that take movies for something serious and something real when it's a Fantasy based Sci-Fi movie scare me. You would say that just because the names of people are fictious and sound stupid to YOU, doesn't mean that it wouldn't be a good movie to someone else? Justifying the fact that this "SHIT" is stupid and how can you take this "seriously?" is like asking me to take Pee-Wee's big Adventure seriously and look for modern day cliche's within' the infastructure of the films opening 30 mins and take notes on why exactly Pee-Wee has "issues" dealing with people who aren't the norm.

 

[JackFrost2012]

People like you that take movies for something serious and something real when it's a Fantasy based Sci-Fi movie scare me. You would say that just because the names of people are fictious and sound stupid to YOU, doesn't mean that it wouldn't be a good movie to someone else? Justifying the fact that this "SHIT" is stupid and how can you take this "seriously?" is like asking me to take Pee-Wee's big Adventure seriously and look for modern day cliche's within' the infastructure of the films opening 30 mins and take notes on why exactly Pee-Wee has "issues" dealing with people who aren't the norm.

It's not that I can't enjoy a dumb movie. I like lots of movies of all different levels of intellectual stimulation. I want to be entertained - and if the names are so mind-bogglingly stupid that I'm rolling my eyes and shaking my head, then yes, it will affect my level of entertainment. There's a difference between "enjoyably dumb" and "insultingly dumb." Riddick, from all appearances, is the latter.

And Pee-Wee's Big Adventure rocks, step off!

 

[Drinky Crow]

Gunther can't read very well, so forgive him. I expressly note that Chronicles' earnest masturbatory love of videogame-style cliche is paramount among my reasons for considering it retarded in my VERY FIRST POST.

Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, on the other hand, is about as tongue-in-cheek as you can get without being Gene Simmons, and its pervasive self-deprecating style makes an incredibly stupid plot charming.

If I'm wrong, and Chronicles has more in common with Spaceballs than Episode 2, I'll gladly cough up $8.50 to see our favorite musclebound King of the Geeks lampoon the puerility of videogaming science-fiction writing.

 

[GuntherBait]

Gunther can't read very well, so forgive him. I expressly note that Chronicles' earnest masturbatory love of videogame-style cliche is paramount among my reasons for considering it retarded in my VERY FIRST POST.

Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, on the other hand, is about as tongue-in-cheek as you can get without being Gene Simmons, and its pervasive self-deprecating style makes an incredibly stupid plot charming.

If I'm wrong, and Chronicles has more in common with Spaceballs than Episode 2, I'll gladly cough up $8.50 to see our favorite musclebound King of the Geeks lampoon the puerility of videogaming science-fiction writing.

So why don't you just shut up and see it and then make an opinion? I think that's my point in all of this.

 

[Matt]

Speaking of shitty movies what's up with Bill Murray being the voice of Garfield in Garfield: The Movie? Why would he do that? How do you go from movies like Rushmore and Lost in Translation to this?

Bill Murray takes whatever work he can get and is glad for it, just like many of the over-the-hill greats (Alec Baldwin, I pity thee.)