The Chronicles of Riddick

TNT ruined my day yesterday. Beginning with the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy they sucked me away from my life and then, in the evening, kept me up at night with more flicks I had to stop and watch even if they weren't particularly good.

The first 'not particularly good' movie was The Chronicles of Riddick. Despite the fact that I have seen this movie three times its plotline still seems a little confusing, if only perhaps because I saw and liked the movie's prequel Pitch Black as a good sci-fi horror cross breed that used many classic techniques and used them well. Therefore I cannot watch this movie without it occuring to me over and over again how the cast from that movie moves into this widescale sci-fi epic which has tinges of Star Trek and Star Wars in it at times. That dampens the entire movie because then, despite their weak premise, it continues to feel like an entirely seperate unrelated work.

But that aside the film has more pressing issues with it. The main being how ridiculous the necromangers are, the entire plot concept is poorly done but more so ill-defined. That are brought into the fold and the watcher learns almost nothing about them. Much of the film still confuses me, though I've watched it closely. They opened up too many threads and never closed any of them. As far as their bad guys go, well, they only showed you what was neccessary to set up the fighting and action but you understand nothing about them. They open up races and planets who are also left undefined.

The poor character work could possibly be overlooked if it were not for this. But really, its no good. Riddick only shows emotion when its necessary, and the film never adequately shows why he cares for the people he does. More than anything is the fact that there is no depth or inner conflict in any of these characters, even the "inner turmoil" of the Necromanger Lord whose wife is coaxing him into killing the Lord Marshall, is petty and shallow, completely one dimensional.

But in the end all that can be overlooked if you are not a movie critic who by nature of their job ruins the movie for themselves, which I am not thankfully. Therefore I can still watch the movie for lack of anything better to do and enjoy it thanks to the impressive backdrop and interesting settings, but its just not anything that sticks with you and you are left more confused in the end by the things it brought into the fold and never answered or explained and the Religion it introduced and never defined, but hey, just sit back and enjoy the scenery and try to just let the chaos enfold you. That's my take anyway.