Stealth Entertainment
By Scott Lumley
September 25, 2008
BoxOfficeProphets.com
But Hollywood's loss is our gain. There is a veritable treasure trove of film out there that you may not have seen. I will be your guide to this veritable wilderness of unwatched film. It will be my job to steer you towards the action, adventure, drama and comedy that may have eluded you, and at the same time, steer you away from some truly unwatchable dreck.
Hopefully we'll stumble across some entertainment that may have slid under your radar. Wish us luck.
The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
The Chronicles of Riddick seems like an odd choice for this column. After all, it grossed $57.6 million during its domestic release (with another $33 million coming from international venues). Unfortunately, it cost a reported $110 million to make. It was a pretty massive bomb, and fans worldwide had been waiting for a second appearance from Riddick since his origin and to say that this film let them all down is a bit of an understatement. The studios punished Vin Diesel horrifically for failing to produce a box office monster and forced him to appear in a movie that was originally slotted for Hulk Hogan (The Pacifier).
The Chronicles of Riddick was released in 2004 and is a sequel to Pitch Black, one of the best horror/action films of all time. It starred Diesel as Riddick, Judi Dench as Aereon, Colm Feore as the Lord Marshall, Alexa Davalos as Kyra and Nick Chinlund as Toombs.
This is at best an eclectic cast, and while some of them really worked well in the movie, both Feore and Dench seemed like they were slumming. There are parts of the movie when you can practically see both of them rolling their eyes at the script. What does work better are the castings of Chinlund as Tombs and Davalos as Kyra. In stark contrast to the complete apathy that both Feore and Dench show their characters, both Toombs and Kyra are played like their lives depended on it.
And then of course, there is Riddick. It doesn't seem possible, but Diesel actually dials down the character a notch in this one. Where previously he was sullen and aggressive, Diesel now plays him as if he took a triple dose of thorazine. Riddick very rarely even raises his voice, even when he's killing people.
And oh yeah, he kills people. Usually up close and personal and accompanied with the sounds the sounds of vertebrae splintering and flesh shredding. Get used to those sounds too, because they occur a lot when Riddick is onscreen. He's literally the baddest guy in the room, and he knows it. Occasionally someone makes him prove it, which usually results in a broken neck for the questioner.
It's really hard to take a character like Riddick seriously. But it's even harder to take this movie seriously. The primary bad guys in this film are the Necromongers, a group of pain-immune hard asses that are built like tanks and about as deep as a coffee cup. They're led by the "Lord Marshall" as he slaughters his way across the stars casually recruiting followers and committing genocide as they go. The Lord Marshall is also "Half Dead" yet fully conscious, awake and now possessing super powers. They don't explain how he became half dead or why that conveys these abilities upon him, and honestly, I'm grateful. I don't know if the writers thought this all the way through, but I'm pretty sure if they tried explaining this half dead thing it would end up sounding a whole lot like the force.
It seems like I'm pretty down on this film, and I am a bit. Pitch Black was completely amazing despite the fact that the primary bad guy in that film was an ecological impossibility. Chronicles doesn't really come close to the streamlined and tense scripting that Pitch Black had, and it seems like every time the writers got stuck they threw in an absurd action piece to mask just how flimsy the whole premise was.
It's not entirely fair to judge a film by its predecessor, but this is technically a sequel to Pitch Black so I've got to hold it up to that standard.
Really, the best part of the film occurs when Riddick gets sent to an ultra secure, maximum security, infested with gigantic wolf-cats, prison that is located on a dead rock in the middle of space. He meets up with Kyra there, while Toombs negotiates a reward for his "capture" and Riddick sets about proving that he is the biggest, baddest dog on the cell block. It takes about three seconds for him to do that, and in the process he gets united with Kyra. To say these two have a lot of fun in prison is like saying that Bush may have made some bad moves with the economy.
Unfortunately, the prison scenes only last about 40 minutes tops, and then the Necromongers show up again, which naturally forces a showdown between Riddick and the Lord Marshall. It's a nice touch that the writers didn't give this film the normal happy ending, but thankfully, it is an ending.
In the end, The Chronicles of Riddick is a strange exercise in film. There are few likable characters, the locations are bizarre and gloomy and heavy violence permeates nearly every scene. The lead character is a borderline psychopath and the bad guys are hard to buy into. While there are some stunning action sequences in this film, by the end of the movie you're just thankful that it's over. And any time you watch a movie that cost $110 million to make, you should be able to expect a better result than this.