Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
I’ve heard that the reports of “wholesale” cuts to the film were greatly exaggerated, and I hope I’ll get a look at it before it hits theaters in two weeks. Harry and I were the first champions of PITCH BLACK, and I’ve been a big supporter of David Twohy’s work overall. Very few people seem to genuinely love the genre film as much as he does, and he’s got a real knack for elevating B-material with wit and a good sense of action.
Check this reader’s reaction...
Hey Harry, Long Time Reader, First Time Writer.
A little while ago I was treated to a pretty top secret screening of The Chronicles of Riddick. I was ushered into a pretty crap theatre and we were seated, we (like usual) weren't told what film we were going to see until some guy (who looked like David Twohy) waltzed up to the front of the theatre and started talking. It was your normal blabbing bullshit where he gives you a quick introduction and shuttles along into telling us that we were the first crowd to see this specific version of the film.
Now, the special effects were basically finished, the music had some temp, and some seemed like original score, because I could've sworn I heard it in the trailer. I think the film clocked in at around two hours and ten minutes or so and thats without credits, which weren't attached anyway. So he finally gets down from speaking about his "labor of love" and lets the movie begin:
I've always been a rather big fan of David Twohy, I found that when he had the right means he could make a great film. I liked "The Arrival" because it was pretty intelligent, despite Charlie Sheen. "Pitch Black" wasn't a classic but it was pretty decent summer fanfare. And "Below" was a fairly gripping film, in my opinion. Although you can feel Twohy cutting back sometimes, almost like he pulls punches.
The Chronicles of Riddick is David Twohy throwing haymakers and you know what, he kicks the shit out of sci-fi. I've never been a fan of Vin Diesel, in fact I think he's a meat-head, but when I heard about this project it was Twohy that was shining through... I knew he'd deliver a great film. And you know what, gravel-head Diesel dissappears into Riddick and I was actually swept up into this film.
The story is your basic sci-fi stuff, prophecised man is unleashed upon bad guys and does what he has to do to become victorious. The twist is of course that Riddick is "another kind of evil" which is the Furyan race, and as you can tell by the name, most Furyan's aren't exactly happy campers, but they are a wickedly powerful bunch. And so continues to adventure. There is a scene on the prison planet that gave me sweaty palms, in which they have to outrun the sunlight from basically flash frying their asses. Thats a really great scene, although it did kind of float closely to The Mummy Returns.
One problem was a little sense of derived storytelling, usually Twohy is pretty much a free thinker, but you can see Hollywood trends sneaking in from time to time within the film, especially the rather overblown climax. Which wasn't entirely finished digitally, and I certain hope they change the temp music because it was royal shit. Sounded like something from Star Trek: Nemesis, it just didn't fit at all.
But really you can sense the beginnings of a really great trilogy here, which is another flaw that the film suffers from. It feels a little too much like a set up for a big cake, or a prelude to a royal hand job. You can sense that the mythology is going to explode, and right when its about to hit... credits roll. So it hurts, but I certainly hope the film does well enough to let them complete the trilogy, because this film definitely gives me hope.
Now for a really quick break-down of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
The Good: The special effects that were finished were damn near
photo-realistic, and they integrate well into the cinematography. They
don't lose the gritty feel that the film was obviously aiming for. Vin Diesel's Riddick character is actually much more intriguing and fleshed out this time around, apparently some flashbacks were cut out of the film (according to Twohy) but I think they might've helped our sympathies some. The action, while a little sparse, was great when it showed up, and Twohy has a real visual flare, which is something that I didn't expect. And Colm Feore and Judi Dench are what I would expect, fantastic. Feore is a little reserved here, but it works with his character. And Dench, again while sparse, is fantastic at laying out all the exposition without boring me to tears.
The Bad: Again, some of the music seemed really bad. I'm not sure who is doing the score, but he definitely has some work cut out for him. Because the music definitely needs some sincere tweaking. Also, Karl Urban is one of the lamest characters I've seen in a while, the part was well written but he just can't seem to get over posing and thinking about his hair. I don't know why he grated me so much, but maybe it was because I just didn't like his look.
The Ugly: The film could use a tad bit of tightening up here and there, some shots loom a little too long and some lines could use a bit of a hack job. Other than that, nothing much is very ugly.
Overall I think its probably one of the smartest sci-fi films to come out in quite some time, and I certainly hope it launches a new wave of great films with space-ships and planets and strange creatures and cool characters. Because Star Wars died quite a long time ago, if my watch is right. So I recommend it if you're a sci-fi fan, but if you're more into ridiculous action and heads blowing up, just see Van Helsing, because Riddick actually has a brain.
Thanks a lot, yours truly, Dave Burman.
I love that Universal is trying to get into the big-budget SF game with RIDDICK and with next year’s SERENITY. These are potentially cool films with some great creative teams attached, and for fans of the genre, this is certainly a welcome thing.
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