I freaking loved that movie, I don't even care. It had a really cool Conan in Space feel to it. Shoot, he even became king at the end of it!
Movie Defense Force: The Chronicles of Riddick
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
- Start date
I don't love this movie? Why? I never watched it...heck, I never watched any of these movies...probably should fix that someday. I've heard good things about the games too. A game based off of a movie that's actually good? A rare breed indeed.
Many seem to expect a lot more from this film than I was, I loved Pitch Black and this flick was pretty fun. Had a lot of fun art direction and good action, it was cheesy at parts but many movies are. People liked Star Trek and that was both disgustingly off what the series has been for years and took itself super serious.
As the films are released the progressively get better in my opinion.
Riddick > Chronicles of Riddick > Pitch Black.
Riddick > Chronicles of Riddick > Pitch Black.
I have never claimed to love 80s movies and I actually liked Chronicles of Riddick. Not as much as Pitch Black, obviously. In fact, that's why (I'm sure) most people didn't like CoR... because it was so far from Pitch Black that if you watched it for a sequel to Pitch Black you'd come out of the theatre dissapointed.
Truth, this is the movie's biggest problem. It's a handful of good scenes amid a gelatinous mass of gunk that takes forever to slog through to get to those good bits. I have no problem with the movie's plot being silly or Necromongers being suddenly The Big Bad Thing out of nowhere or any of that (except the prison planet's sun issues - that always bothers me, the whole "we can't even afford flying through the sunlight in our spaceship" thing becoming "well actually a human body can survive direct contact with that sunlight for quite a while as long as you douse it with water first, you'll just steam up a little" by the time they're making their escape - so much for consistency or holding to its convictions there, eh?), it's just freaking dull.Mangue Surfer said:
It's the kind of movie I might turn on in the background just for ambient noise while I'm doing something else, looking up to it when I hear one of the aforementioned good bits about to happen.
i also enjoyed this movie that i watched it several times. sure its not as good as pitch black but its enjoyable with some wise cracking remarks from diesel and some goofy action scenes. at least its better then the third one which really wasnt that good.
I loved this when I saw it years back, it was for some time my favorite movie. The crazy setting and the apparently how serious the movies takes itself, thattook me some ting to actually comprehend.
The scene where Vin Diesel saves that chick and the sun comes up and he's flexing and the water is evaporating of him. It just doesn't get any cooler!
The scene where Vin Diesel saves that chick and the sun comes up and he's flexing and the water is evaporating of him. It just doesn't get any cooler!
I very much like this movie but you have a great point. The single biggest problem I had with this movie is that Riddick was a bad ass human being in Pitch Black. He was human. Very human. A single man vs. man fight was deadly dangerous for him. That made it all the more mind blowing when the "did not know who he was messing with" scene comes!blackrave said:
In this movie, he's a superman! This is NOT the Riddick of the first film and all the tension is therefore, gone.
Oh. And it's a little bit racist. Riddick isn't a bad ass because he's a bad ass. It's the race of Furions he comes from that matters. Uh huh.
That doesn't mean it wasn't successful in its own right. I love the opening snow scene, and there is a bit of homage to the first film: them running again, this time trying to beat the sunrise. Plenty of quality visuals many fantasy fans likely missed due to the bad word of mouth this movie got.
Best movie defense I've seen in ages. I hate when he takes a really bad movie and says, "but it was great for what it was". That isn't enough. Take movies that really got hate they didn't deserve because they were actually good.
Yeah, I had the same feeling watching this. It was a fun action movie that didn't care what people thought about it. Jim hits upon a good point, I think. Some types of movies were just better when they weren't trying to be smart and self-aware.Alcaste said:
I absolutely enjoyed these movies. I still joke about that teacup sequence and what he held up right afterwards. I wasn't sure why people disliked it at all in any significant numbers.
I do find it surprising that this was a $105 million budget movie. But I guess it was CGI intensive for 2004. But a 29% rotten tomato? That's far too harsh for a movie with so many redeeming qualities for people who like this kind of thing.
I do find it surprising that this was a $105 million budget movie. But I guess it was CGI intensive for 2004. But a 29% rotten tomato? That's far too harsh for a movie with so many redeeming qualities for people who like this kind of thing.
I thought Chronicles was okay, but it wasn't the fact that it took itself too seriously that brought it down for me. Everything on the prison planet I actually enjoyed. The stuff that didn't work was the Elementalist lady, Furions, destiny and the Necromonger political process.
You compare it to the 80s but one thing 80's action flicks did right was truncated the plot for the sake of more action. A lot of those classics, especially the Arnie films were extremely light on plot. Bad guy has motivation, somehow incites Arnie to action, and Ahnald kills everyone in his way to the final confrontation. Myabe 10-15 minutes at best was ever spent on the side plot.
Think about Running Man's sub plots. A resistance movement against the oppressive corporations, codes needed to hack the satellites and the whole truth of the Butcher of Bakersfield. Combined total of maybe 10 minutes of footage and dialog, a lot of it just an excuse to get you to another set piece. Heck, I bet 90% of people who claim to love that movie would forget one of those sub plots if you asked them about it.
That is where Chronicles fell down. It didn't need to go into Riddicks history. It didn't need Judy Dench monologuing about how odd the universe is, and it certainly didn't need Thandie Newton (can't think of anything I have liked her in) doing the whole convince my hubby to take over the throne garbage.
The movie was at its best when it just let Riddick be Riddick and let the situation unfold without all the overarching plot threads. Incidentally, that is also why Pitch Black was such a superior experience. It didn't try to overcomplicate what it was. A bunch of people crash land on a hostile planet. Each of them with just enough history (based on how long they lived) to make them interesting and give them a sense of progression as they try to survive.
You compare it to the 80s but one thing 80's action flicks did right was truncated the plot for the sake of more action. A lot of those classics, especially the Arnie films were extremely light on plot. Bad guy has motivation, somehow incites Arnie to action, and Ahnald kills everyone in his way to the final confrontation. Myabe 10-15 minutes at best was ever spent on the side plot.
Think about Running Man's sub plots. A resistance movement against the oppressive corporations, codes needed to hack the satellites and the whole truth of the Butcher of Bakersfield. Combined total of maybe 10 minutes of footage and dialog, a lot of it just an excuse to get you to another set piece. Heck, I bet 90% of people who claim to love that movie would forget one of those sub plots if you asked them about it.
That is where Chronicles fell down. It didn't need to go into Riddicks history. It didn't need Judy Dench monologuing about how odd the universe is, and it certainly didn't need Thandie Newton (can't think of anything I have liked her in) doing the whole convince my hubby to take over the throne garbage.
The movie was at its best when it just let Riddick be Riddick and let the situation unfold without all the overarching plot threads. Incidentally, that is also why Pitch Black was such a superior experience. It didn't try to overcomplicate what it was. A bunch of people crash land on a hostile planet. Each of them with just enough history (based on how long they lived) to make them interesting and give them a sense of progression as they try to survive.
My only problem with the movie and what makes it so hard to stomach for me is that, it's supposed to take place in the same universe as Pitch Black.
You know the gritty sci-fi alien/Star Ship Troopers knock off.
Now you could argue that there wasn't really enough established in that movie to say that none of this stuff that was later presented in Riddick didn?t exist but at the same time, there wasn't anything previously that hinted that it could either which is why Space Elementals and evil Knights just feels like it was completely pulled from someone?s back passage.
I also am not a fan of the retooling of the Riddick character either. I preferred when his was morally ambiguous and dangerous as opposed to a reluctant hero.
You know the gritty sci-fi alien/Star Ship Troopers knock off.
Now you could argue that there wasn't really enough established in that movie to say that none of this stuff that was later presented in Riddick didn?t exist but at the same time, there wasn't anything previously that hinted that it could either which is why Space Elementals and evil Knights just feels like it was completely pulled from someone?s back passage.
I also am not a fan of the retooling of the Riddick character either. I preferred when his was morally ambiguous and dangerous as opposed to a reluctant hero.