by Debaser » Sat Jun 12, 2004 3:57 pm
You only keep what you kill.
- The New Radicals
Wow this flick isn't doing well on the old T-Meter, is it? I don't think I've read one really positive review of it... until now!!! Or rather until several minutes from now when I've finished writing this post and go back and reread it!!!
A lot of people want to compare this flick to Star Wars (positively if they're talking about the prequels or negaitvely if they're talking about the original films), and the Dune film (which I've never seen) comes up occassionally. But really, more than anything this feels like the broody, misanthropic stepson of The Fifth Element. In case the word "Necromonger" from the previews didn't tip you off, this little Space Opera has more cheese than a stadium full of Packers fans.
The Necromongers, apart from sounding like creatures who got cut from the original D&D Monster Manual in favor of another slimy ooze variant, have a taste in decor that's best described as "neo-industrial homosexual". Everything's done up in smooth iron, with hilarious alto-rilievos of grimicing faces. Meanwhile, Twohy's hard at work finding the most ludicrously puntastic names for everything in his little universe. For example, the relentlessly angry Riddick is in fact from a race called the "Furions", and the really hot planet he goes to visit is called "Crematoria".
It's all just barely this side of laughable, and in fact will likely slip well over to the other side for a lot of viewers. But by riding that edge, it actually manages to work, at least for me. On an immersive level by making everything larger than life (the creepy bondage hound guys the Necromongers employ are a great touch), and on a structural level by saving on exposition. Say you're trying to figure out why Dame Judi Dench keeps turning invisible and the wind's always blowing around her. Well, if someone said she was of the "Elemental" race, then there you go. Anyone likely to see this movie can get that on an instinctual level without having to hear a bunch of exposition about what an Elemental is and what it is capable of.
Unlike Element, however, Riddick has at least a bit of meat on its bones. If the characters are largely cliches, they're fully realized cliches and it's easy to get who they are, why they do what they do, and what in their natures makes doing what they do difficult. It's not Greek Tragedy, but when Riddick announces to the Lord Marshall "You've killed everything I know"... well, by that point the film and its characters have earned that moment (unlike the horrendous final act of FE).
I was going to say that, on the other hand, it's not as fun as the Fifth Element. And it's not, obviously. But I didn't want to imply that the movie isn't fun at all. It's all gritty pissing contest fun, but that works for the most part. The way Riddick can't go thirty seconds without making a gravely aside to remind everyone how totally in control of every situation he is. The way Kyra (she was called Jack in Pitch Black, I guess) is so obviously caught up in the idea of being a hardened killer. Pretty much any scene involving Toombs (the bounty hunter chasing Riddick) is great.
The effects are very good. Hollywood's pretty much mastered explosions and glowing blue energy fields at this point, but (while some CG was almost certainly necessary for some of the stunts the characters engage in), at no point did anything cease to feel like it had the weight of actual physical substance behind it. The action scenes are alright, if sometimes a little hard to follow at times. The director seems better depicting a quick kill from out of nowhere than an expansive brawl of firefight.
It's obvious they're angling for a franchise here. Characters are left alive or in "fate unknown" state when it would have made more sense to kill them, and the ending is pretty much a blatant lead in to a sequel. I guess they're gonna do one of those animated web-features like the Matrix used to, too. Speaking personally, I'm rather past the point where I want to develope encyclopedic knowledge of the cannonic elements of another fictional universe, but I'd definitely sign on for another two hours of shiny-eyes Diesel glowering menacingly at alien life-forms.
Status: Recommended!
Oh, and for the record, I haven't seen Pitch Black. I prefer space opera or true science fiction to scifi-horror, but I'll probably end up giving it a rental now, just to see where these characters started.
[i]You only keep what you kill.[/i]
- The New Radicals
Wow this flick isn't doing well on the old T-Meter, is it? I don't think I've read one really positive review of it... [i]until now!!![/i] Or rather [i]until several minutes from now when I've finished writing this post and go back and reread it!!![/i]
A lot of people want to compare this flick to Star Wars (positively if they're talking about the prequels or negaitvely if they're talking about the original films), and the Dune film (which I've never seen) comes up occassionally. But really, more than anything this feels like the broody, misanthropic stepson of The Fifth Element. In case the word "Necromonger" from the previews didn't tip you off, this little Space Opera has more cheese than a stadium full of Packers fans.
The Necromongers, apart from sounding like creatures who got cut from the original D&D Monster Manual in favor of another slimy ooze variant, have a taste in decor that's best described as "neo-industrial homosexual". Everything's done up in smooth iron, with hilarious [i]alto-rilievos[/i] of grimicing faces. Meanwhile, Twohy's hard at work finding the most ludicrously puntastic names for everything in his little universe. For example, the relentlessly angry Riddick is in fact from a race called the "Furions", and the really hot planet he goes to visit is called "Crematoria".
It's all just [i]barely[/i] this side of laughable, and in fact will likely slip well over to the other side for a lot of viewers. But by riding that edge, it actually manages to work, at least for me. On an immersive level by making everything larger than life (the creepy bondage hound guys the Necromongers employ are a great touch), and on a structural level by saving on exposition. Say you're trying to figure out why Dame Judi Dench keeps turning invisible and the wind's always blowing around her. Well, if someone said she was of the "Elemental" race, then there you go. Anyone likely to see this movie can get that on an instinctual level without having to hear a bunch of exposition about what an Elemental is and what it is capable of.
Unlike Element, however, Riddick has at least a bit of meat on its bones. If the characters are largely cliches, they're fully realized cliches and it's easy to get who they are, why they do what they do, and what in their natures makes doing what they do difficult. It's not Greek Tragedy, but when Riddick announces to the Lord Marshall "You've killed everything I know"... well, by that point the film and its characters have earned that moment (unlike the horrendous final act of FE).
I was going to say that, on the other hand, it's not as fun as the Fifth Element. And it's not, obviously. But I didn't want to imply that the movie isn't fun at all. It's all gritty pissing contest fun, but that works for the most part. The way Riddick can't go thirty seconds without making a gravely aside to remind everyone how totally in control of every situation he is. The way Kyra (she was called Jack in Pitch Black, I guess) is so obviously caught up in the [i]idea[/i] of being a hardened killer. Pretty much any scene involving Toombs (the bounty hunter chasing Riddick) is great.
The effects are very good. Hollywood's pretty much mastered explosions and glowing blue energy fields at this point, but (while some CG was almost certainly necessary for some of the stunts the characters engage in), at no point did anything cease to feel like it had the weight of actual physical substance behind it. The action scenes are alright, if sometimes a little hard to follow at times. The director seems better depicting a quick kill from out of nowhere than an expansive brawl of firefight.
It's obvious they're angling for a franchise here. Characters are left alive or in "fate unknown" state when it would have made more sense to kill them, and the ending is pretty much a blatant lead in to a sequel. I guess they're gonna do one of those animated web-features like the Matrix used to, too. Speaking personally, I'm rather past the point where I want to develope encyclopedic knowledge of the cannonic elements of [i]another[/i] fictional universe, but I'd definitely sign on for another two hours of shiny-eyes Diesel glowering menacingly at alien life-forms.
Status: Recommended!
Oh, and for the record, I haven't seen Pitch Black. I prefer space opera or true science fiction to scifi-horror, but I'll probably end up giving it a rental now, just to see where these characters started.