3/12/2005
Movie Night!
So I probably shouldn't admit this. Especially in this forum but...
I liked Chronicles of Riddick.
I know, I know. But it wasn't all that bad.
We're not talking high art here but it was better than pitch black.
I rented it because it looked like it would have some decent action. Turns out the action wasn't quite as good as I expected. However, pretty much everything else was way better. Special effects where pretty damned good. Writing didn't suck all that much at all. Little hokey here and there but for the most part good. They kept the one liners down to a minimum, Not that I have a problem with one liners but it's a really easy thing to screw up. In fact I think the stupidest dialogue actually helps the movie. It comes from a guy who is really annoying and not all that smart.
Wouldn't recommend it to your girlfriend, but if you're looking for a decent action flick with lots of death, this might be a good deal.
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2 comments:
I have to disagree with you about it being better than Pitch Black - primarily for all the exact opposite reasons you stated you liked Chronicles.
I liked Pitch Black for its grittiness. It was a low-budget, low special effects film with a decent plotline and C-list actors. I actually enjoyed the fact that I was rooting for the bad guy in the movie. The flawed hero concept.
Chronicles; however, picks up where we left off and then throws huge amounts of special effects and eye-candy at you, which is great and all, but detracted (for me) from the grittiness of Pitch Black.
I like em both, but Pitch Black is still better IMO.
J-
I thought the 'grittiness' of pitch black was a little too forced. City of lost children was gritty (and a bit less forced.)The first two alien movies where gritty. This one seemed a little to much like something that started as a marketing idea and less like something that started as a good script. And as much as I like it the anti-hero thing is WAY overdone these days. I fear it's only going to become more and more popular. Also it seemed a little too much like "hey check this out, isn't vin disel's voice really deap!"
All that being said. I LOVED the special effects in Pitch Black. If you spend any time with my you'll know that I nitpick the living shit out of movies. Especially special effects. I think they are so much easier to do better and most movies fuck things up by doing stupid shit with their special effects. Also I am Uber Uber in to good directing. And one of the things that makes a good director is knowing your limits. Fantastic use of a special effects budget. They didn't try and blow eye candy all over the screen because they couldn't have. They made a more limited use of it and made them better without blowing their entire CG budget on just the damned monsters, they saved enough back to do little things like bats and crap spread out through the film so there was never a rubber head on a stick or some lame Warhammer looking model taking me out of the movie and making me go "Hey that's a lame Warhammer 40k looking model!"
You are right, there was to much special effects but like I said I wasn't expectin high art. In a movie with top notch actors and a DAMN fine script it would have bugged the crap out of me. As it was it gave me something to focus on during the long long long stretches when nobody was talking.
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