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Back Shelf Beauties
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The Chronicles of Riddick I guess I can't hold it against Vin Diesel. If some Hollywood studio executives offered to pay me millions and millions of dollars to star in some cruddy movies, I'd tell them where to mail the checks and offer to show up a day early. Sadly for him, and thankfully for us, The Chronicles of Riddick, a follow up to the sci-fi action film Pitch Black, marks the end of the Vin Diesel-era as we know it, but you'll have fun trying to identify each movie ripped off by this one. Diesel stars as Riddick - a tough guy space fugitive tracked by greedy bounty hunters trying to claim the price on his head (like Han Solo in Star Wars). After getting captured, then escaping, Riddick finds himself on Helion One seeking some old acquaintances. At the same time, Helion One is attacked by the dreaded Narcomongers, who seek to assimilate other living beings (like The Borg in Star Trek). However, Riddick might be the prophesized one (like The Matrix) who is feared by The Narcomongers. Then, he goes away to this other planet, which is one big jail (like Captain Kirk and Bones in Star Trek 6). What is the plot? I don't think the director knows. I sure as heck don't know. As far as I can tell, The Chronicles of Riddick is a chance to watch some hot babe run around in hip hugging cargo pants (nice!), listen to Vin Diesel spout off badly written one-liners (not so nice!), and learn that Judi Dench is willing to take a part for the money and not the quality of the script (I hope she did this for her grandkids or something, because I cried when I saw her in this bad movie). The Chronicles of Riddick is a horribly written movie with stupid dialogue, bad acting, and horrendous directing. Writer/director David Twohy has provided a muddled, overly ambitious framework where Riddick might be the descendant of some great warrior race, he has a special someone from his past he wants to find, the Narcomongers are facing a possible coup and more, but it's too much, especially when Twohy just wants to show lots of fight scenes. In this script, the mysterious foreshadowing is clumsy, and the dialogue is laughable. Twohy has provided such gems as, "he is half man, half something else," and Riddick, while taking a whiff of an attractive lady like a fat man walking through a donut shop at baking time, says, "It's been along time since I smelled beautiful." And, let's not forget those pitiful names like The Narcomongers, Helion One and the planet Crematoria, which happens to be very hot (Oh, I GET IT!). That's just the tip of this Titanic iceberg. Twohy doesn't put all of the elements together in an interesting or compelling way that makes us feel as if all of this is building up to a great climax, so he gives up and features lots of fight scenes, most of which are badly shot so it is hard to follow the action and horribly edited so they're not seamless. Diesel doesn't help as he growls his way through every scene eschewing subtly and nuance as if they were terminal diseases. He relies on misplaced attitude on overdrive to mask the script's weak points and his performance suffers for it. Everyone makes fun of me when I say this, but Diesel is a good actor who has to find the right roles. He was amazing in The Boiler Room and The Iron Giant (he was the voice of the Iron Giant), so we know he has it in him. After this movie tanks, I hope he will go back to stuff like that. The Chronicles of Riddick is a disaster. ½ Waffle (Out Of 4) Copyright 2004 - WaffleMovies.com
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