Hey folks, Harry here... Well last night was the first test screening for THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK... I haven't been a fan of the trailer... I think - there's just nothing familiar to me from the first film, so I'm left thinking, "Who the hell are all these people?" Well - that's what the movie is for, right? Well, the word sounds good. For a film with tons of FX work yet to be completed, these people sure do make a case for it kicking a certain amount of ass. The main thing to keep in mind, any of the pacing concerns they have right now, Twohy has the time to tighten up still -- this thing doesn't hit till June 11th. As for unresolved plot issues they bring up, I beleive that Twohy is on record as saying this is the first film and that the 2nd and 3rd parts will be shot back to back. So... I imagine he'd leave a few threads hanging. Beware of spoilers... Enjoy...
Harry-san,
Tonight I was in the test screening of The Chronicles of Riddick or Pitch Black 2: Diesel Power. I haven’t seen too much about the movie except for the trailer so I thought that I’d weigh in on how it was.
I know that this is supposed to be a follow-up to Pitch Black, but it’s so completely different. I liked that movie. Thought it was completely fine… nothing that I’ve really thought about everyday of my life, but fine - and I'll definitely check it out again now. But what was cool about it was, well, Riddick - which they wisely built up in this movie. Riddick is still a fucking cool badass and he’s a character that Vin Diesel should just stick with.
I just wrote a bunch about the story of the movie but I erased it. Its pretty fuckin’ dense when you get into the details – much more going on than what I even realized while watching the movie. But that’s why it’s so different than Pitch Black – that was a pretty straight ahead story. This… well… this had all sorts of shit going on. Necromongers, Furians, Elementals – all new races/breeds of people who are conspiring against one another. Lemme just say this: I don’t know what the hell is going on in the writer/ director's minds, but its pretty intense. I’m probably going to catch shit for this, but the movie reminded me a lit! tle of Empire Strikes Back without any of the romance. It’s just kinda cool to see a big, original space movie with a little bit of fantasy stuff thrown in. I can’t remember the last time I saw one of those (I don’t count Star Trek – never got into those movies/TV shows – and I don’t count the new Star Wars movies – ‘cuz they were just a giant CGI let-down).
I guess the best way to do this is I’ll do a little break-down of the movie by character:
Riddick – Still a badass. Doesn’t want to deal with anyone… just kinda wants to be alone. He secluded himself on a far-off planet which looked cold as shit and decided to grow some dreads. He’s brought out of hiding by a merc named Tooms. He escapes the capture, goes to New Mecca to see old friend Imam (who told the mercs how to find Riddick), meets Areon (Judie Dench) who tells him about a prophecy, so he gets wrapped up in a whole lotta shit with these invaders called necromongers. Basically, he’s the only one who can stop them because he’s one of the last Furians alive. So, yeah, he’s supposed to save the universe. His response to that was exactly what I wanted to hear -- “It’s not my fight.” But out of survival and loyalty to Imam and Kira (who was Jack in Pitch Black), he gets involved. Shit – I was trying to make this about characters… basically, he is why we’re watching the movie. Yeah, it’s Vin Diesel and I’ve kinda given up on him… but I found myself waiting to see him kill someone else… waiting to see him kick a little more ass… and waiting for him to piss off more people… just so he could be left alone. And he’s the probably the only person who could pull off killing a guy with a teacup. Note to Vin – stick with this guy.
Imam – eh. Whatever. This is the only character who kinda bugged me in Pitch Black. He’s the same here, except with a family. Not the biggest part of the movie… at all.
Areon – Judie Dench! I mean who thought we’d see the day when Vin Diesel is in a movie with a Dame? She’s perfect. She plays Ms. Explanation – aka Areon who is of the elemental race. And, really, if you’re going to have anyone to help explain what the hell is going on with the story, it might as well be Judie Dench. Never thought I’d say this about a Dame, but she’s pretty fuckin’ cool… very conniving, manipulative, intelligent, and just cool.
Kira (the artist formerly known as Jack) – I don’t know who the actress is who plays her… but she was sexy in that “don’t touch me or I’ll kill you… no, really, I’ll kill you” sort of way. She has a sort of mentor/student relationship with Riddick – which it seems Riddick kinda resents. But she keeps up with him in a pretty awesome escape from a prison – the escape/chase is probably the closest moment to Pitch Black. So, anyway, she’s a killer and yet still an insecure girl who makes bad decisions… it was interesting to see what happened to the little girl from the other movie.
Tooms – Dunno who played him, but he’s got charisma. Think of a dirtier, less heroic Han Solo with the career of Boba Fett. Thinking of this and Pitch Black, the mercs make for some cool characters.
Lord Marshall – The head of the necromongers. I know that I’ve seen the actor who plays him a million times, but I can’t think of his name. Really good villain, though. He is determined to take over the universe so that he can convert everyone to the necromonger beliefs and so they could go to the “underverse.” I don’t know where that is, but I’m sure it’s a lovely place. And, kinda like Vader’s death grip thing, Lord Marshall has his own power – he can see behind him and he can kinda separate his soul and his body. To be honest, I don’t know how to explain it… but its a damn good trick. And he looks fucking cool. Rockin’ costume (I can’t be! lieve I just wrote that).
Dame Vako – Speaking of rockin’ costume, Thandie Newton fills hers out perfectly. She’s just fuckin’ hot. Perfectly bitchy and ruthless, too. If my memory of lit class serves me right, there’s a bit of a Lady Macbeth in here (or if my memory of Throne of Blood serves me right, there’s a bit of… well… shit, I don’t know her name… but the female character… nevermind). Just hot. Really, really hot. Moving on….
Vako – The actor looked vaguely familiar and I spoke to someone who said he was in Lord of the Rings. So, there you have it – I guess the Mohawk threw me off. He’s the necromonger second-in-command and he’s torn between loyalty to Lord Marshall and his ruthless ambition driven by his Dame. I thought he was pretty good – could have seen a bit more of him though.
Fuck… I’m blanking on all the other characters and I’m tired…
Action – Awesome. When Riddick kick ass, he kicks ass properly. Like I said before, that’s what I wanted to see… and I most definitely got it. And it’s not just him – just about every character got a chance to whup a little ass. And a big battle between the meccan and necromonger armies was pretty fuckin’ solid. Which I guess brings us to...
CGI – Lots of effects, many of which weren’t done for the screening… but what we did see looked pretty good. There are a few decent spaceship shots and battles, but it seemed like most of the CGI was used to create all of the different planets (which there are about 4 or 5 of them).
Design – This is what I noticed first about the trailer and is probably one of the most memorable parts of the movie. It really looks awesome. The sets and the costumes and the look… all appropriately killer. Pitch Black was so barren, this is totally… uhh… lush? Or ornate? Or fancy? You know what I mean.
Music – I wasn’t listening to the guy who introduced the movie, but I’m pretty sure it was all temp score. It sounded a bit familiar.
Skip to the endddd….
Here’s the deal: I was pretty surprised to like the movie as much as I did (and I think that other people in the audience were too). It’s a bit too long, but it just felt kinda different and fresh. It was BIG. There aren’t too many movies which have the balls to introduce so many new types of people, so many new planets, and to have everybody be a bit of a badguy/girl. That’s one thing, there’s no… uhh… Frodo here. No one you’re hoping stays out of harm’s way. You’re actually waiting to see who gets into trouble and who dies… which was what I also liked about Pitch Black – the people you were getting attached to, died.
Oh, and the ending is kind of a twist which definitely leaves this open to more Riddick movies.
And that’s that.
--Otis D.
Here's Magic-Bee
Hey all,
First time reviewer on your site - you can call me Magic-Bee if you post this.
I just got out of the Chronicles of Riddick preview shown here in Roseville, CA. According to the presenters, our audience was the first in the country to see it. It was a rough draft, so not all the effect shots were polished.
Overall Chronicles of Riddick (CoR) was packed with action and special effects. However the story had alot of questions left open unintentionally; I left very confused. Perhaps some of those plot holes I experienced were answered in "Pitch Black", which was the precursor to this movie. Based on what I saw here, I probably won't invest another 2 hrs. to find out.
The actor performances delved into overacting at times and the movie took itself too serious. I think the worst culprits were the bad guys of the film, known as the necromongers, more on them in a minute - think of campy bad guys from the old adam west batman series.
The story begins in a council chamber where Julie Dench, is consulting with black man dressed in a muslim wardrobe, played by Keith David (starred in Men at Work - best known for saying "someone threw out a perfectly good white boy"). Julie Dench plays a seer that predicts the future based on calculated probabilities and Keith David is an intergalactic imam. They are discussing how to deal with a threat to the universe known as the necromongers.
The necromongers are an intergalactic religious cult which thrives by wiping out other civilizations. They assimilate the people from these planets into their own ranks by force - think star trek borg. Their costumes look like cheezy halloween gear - little skull beenies and helmets with theatrical faces on them. The leader of the warmongers is called the lord marshal or something to that effect. He has the special power of phase shifting between two points, as well as pulling the souls from peoples' bodies - think Mola Ram from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. In the shadows of the necromongers lies the seed of a power struggle - an up and coming captain, played by Karl Urban (Eomer) and his wife (the love interest from Mission Impossible 2) conspire to take the lord Marshall's place as leader of the 'mongers.
Keith David must have been in the last movie, since he knew where Riddick was living in exile. Dench puts a bounty on his head and the story is off and running.
The scene switches to Riddick with some rasta dreds - he has been living a Robinson Carusoe lifestyle. He is on an ice planet and is quickly discovered by mercenaries hired from Julie Dench's bounty. Needless to say, Riddick kicks butt, steals the merc's ship and heads to the planet where the bounty originated. He shaves his head, flips on his swim goggles, and gets ready to kick some ass.
Riddick is reunited with Keith David and that is when the necromongers arrive to take over Keith's planet. During the encounter, Keith D. dies, Riddick vows revenge as he is taken into monger custody. On board the necro-ship, the lord marshal subjects Riddick to a mind probe. This was confusing to decipher, but the lord of the necromongers discovers that Riddick is the chosen one who will kill him, based on what the seer (Julie Dench) has prophesized. Another battle ensues, Riddick escapes, and is caught by some of the same mercenaries that tried to capture him on the ice planet. Meanwhile the necromongers send Karl Urban to follow, find, and kill Riddick.
This time the mercs succeed and deposit Riddick into a subterrainian jail on a desolate planet(think one of the star trek movies) There Riddick comes across a girl he knew from the "Pitch Black" movie. She tried her hand as a merc and was betrayed, resulting in her prison stay.
The rest of the movie focuses on Riddick escape and his final destiny of destroying the lord marshal. I won't spoil the rest of the movie, but I will say the final act was kind of campy (someone laughed in the theater when the bad guy was put down). On a more positive note though, the ending did have some irony though. All I will say is remember the motto of the necromongers - it becomes important later.
The good:
+Vin Diesel's comedic scenes were great! Death by a tea-cup cracked everyone up.
+The camera angles and shots were very stylized - Vin had alot of angle shots with him looking like a baddass sporting his swim goggles. Alot of the starship shots were spectacular as well.
+Escape from the prison planet - the surface of the planet during the day gets to 700C - there was a scene where Riddick was trying to run ahead of the sunrise to prevent from becoming talcum powder. It was a very novel idea.
The bad:
-the plot holes - for example, Riddick kept dreaming of this woman who had a blue-handed touch. Later she saves him when the necromongers are about to shoot him - someone please tell me who she was and how she caused blue energy to shoot from Riddick's body?!? Also, what was the lord of the necromongers referring to when he talked of the "underverse" - it sounded like a generic term for heaven in their religion, but it was inferred - no one talked about it.
The ugly:
-the necromongers - they are second rate borg clones - especially the hound troops - they were these men on leashes, sporting a glowing porthole on their face. They could see through walls and far distances. There seemed to be different ranks too - I am still trying to figure out what the skull beenie guys did. Yo universal - fire your wardrobe department!!!
Yours truly,
Magic Bee, the roaming Riddick reporter...
And now for SevenStar_3...
Hi all- New to this, but I just wanted to let you know that they held the first test screening of this film tonight and I think it went over really well, from what I can tell from the audience reactions.
I have not seen pitch black, or many other Vin Diesel films for that matter, but I thought it was a good film with a great ending. The action scenes were amazing, with some pretty original death scenes. The score was really good.
Hardly any of the special effects were completed, we saw lots of green screen, actors on ropes, and completely fake looking backgrounds and spacecraft. But for me, being a film dork of sorts I loved seeing this kind of stuff, I have never seen a movie in this state, and it would be really interesting to see the final effects.
Overall, not being a huge Vin Diesel fan or sci-fi fan, I thought it was a really original very well paced film.
I'd recommend it and it was good to see Karl Urban in another movie.
They explain the backround story of Riddick, through some tiny flashbacks, that I found just a bit confusing I could have used a little more backround, going in not knowing anything.
The ending was very complete, but surprsing to me at the same time. It tied things up very nicely, yet left things open at the same time...... I wasn?t totally satisfied with the ending, though.
There was some pretty standard one liners- i guess thats maybe part of what i dont like about vin diesel some of his lines kind of took me out of the movie- they seem like they are just written to get a laugh. but i have to say they did work in the film, the audience laughed quite a few times, so i guess thats what they were going for!
-and yes, i thought the same thing Judi Dench and vin diesel? What the fuck? but it worked out just fine! they only have one scene together....i kept wondering how did they think of Judi Dench for this movie? but she was good in it.
i sound so vague, but hope this helps a little!
I probably would not have seen this film on my own, but now I am glad I saw it. i am interested to see pitch black, and i found some love for vin diesel through this film, that i probably would not have had for him otherwise! I thought it was a good sci fi flick, and although i would not really consider this my favorite genre, i would give it a 7.5/10 without the special effects completed, and probably and 8.5 or 9 out of 10 after they are completed. looks like they are gonna be so cool!
sevenstar_3
