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Chronicles of Riddick (2004) |
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Contributed by Michael Brainstorm
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Friday, 19 August 2005 (read 1824 times) |
The Chronicles of Riddick is the “sequel” to the movie Pitch Black, picking up the story five years later. Riddick has gone into hiding but someone has put a bounty on his head, and so a mercenary finds him and brings him in.
I use quotes around "sequel" because I don’t feel comfortable calling this movie
a plain old sequel. It's not a sequel in the sense that Spiderman 2 was the sequel to Spiderman. In Pitch Black
we were introduced to Riddick and found out he’s a criminal, guilty of
murder. The movie, however, was about this group of people
staying alive in a hostile environment, of which Riddick was only
one. In Chronicles the whole story is about Riddick and his destiny which shares only a few details from the first flick.
Value:
$6.00 | | Our rating system is based on a $7 ticket cost and is the most you should pay to see it. |
Chronicles picks up five years after Black.
Riddick has gone into hiding with a bounty on his
head, and so a mercenary finds him and brings him in. It turns
out that the merc is the holy man that Riddick rescued in Black. The reason he's looking for Riddick is because he
thinks that Riddick can save the holy man’s planet from the
Necromongers who threaten it (and the whole human race).
“Necromongers?” Yes, Necromongers. They're an
interesting species that “procreates” by converting other humans to
their “religious” beliefs. Of course this conversion is a long
and torturous process, but what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,
right? Their goal is to convert (or kill if you won’t convert)
every human in the universe. This is the only way they will get
to their “afterlife” which is called the Underverse. (Their
current reality is known as the Oververse). Following so far?
In order to help them on their quest, they have an entire arsenal of
technology which is based on the rules of this Underverse and not the
universe as we know it. Their leader can rip the soul right out
of your body while you're standing there, and does so in the movie to prove it. They have weapons
too that can kill instantly by firing some kind of projectile that looks
like it is made of captured souls. The propulsion of their ships
also looks like it uses captured souls to move (quickly) through the
atmosphere. So they are, quite literally, Soul Trains.
Also when they travel to a new planet, they travel in huge ships which stay
together in a comet-like formation. Thus when they come into a
star system, the ships do start to create a tail just like comets
do. And when these ships land they can take over an entire
planet in just a few hours.
So basically Riddick is supposed to stop these guys. That’s
really the whole plot. But you won't mind so much because
the story is well told and
the supporting details seem logically in place.
Not only did I like the story, I also liked the special effects.
As I mentioned earlier, the propulsion of these ships looks like
tortured souls and the effects guys nailed it. You see
wispy, black, cloud-like matter entering and leaving the ships
propulsion system. But as it does so, it seems like it is
trying to escape the ship. However, just before the stuff can get
away, the intake sucks it in. It is really cool.
What I liked the most about this film was the detail put into the “bad
guys”. I again use quotes because Riddick isn’t really a good
guy, is he? He’s just less evil than the Necromongers.
Maybe.
Everything about these guys embraces death and the all important
soul. The Necromongers have no real color in their world.
Everything is grey, like ash. At the tops of their columns
(Romanesque, I might add) are carved heads that look like they are
screaming in torture. There was a lot of time spent on these
details. The second time I watched the movie, I tried to pay
attention to all the minutiae and was just astounded. It was
really well done.
And of course, you can’t forget the star of the show, Vin
Diesel. As always, he has done another superb job of playing a
lunatic killer who like’s to play the game “Who’s the best
killer”. What more can I say?
Overall, I enjoyed watching this movie very much. I found it very
easy to let the movie wash over me and take me into its alternate
reality. The $6.00 rating is only because there
were a few notable parts -- mostly dialog related, go
figure -- that really missed the mark.
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