Reaching for Riddick

No. I haven’t seen Spider-Man 2. No. I will not be seeing Spider-Man 2. One of those “big” changes I’m making in my “The world is too much with us” spiritual quest is I’m allowed only ten movies a year.

Of course, seeing The Chronicles of Riddick 50 times only counts as one movie.

I was like: Tobey McGuire? Vin Diesel? Tobey? Vin? That’s like a Reese Witherspoon? Angelina Jolie? question for men.

Now Chronicles of Riddick, like so many movies these days, has it’s moments. Which is to say it has its good moments. Though, heaven knows, it has a goodly bit of bad moments, too.

Vin Diesel’s demigodness aside, and looking beyond the excellent set design, interesting cinematography and not bad at all costuming, Chronicles fit into the action-sci-fi genre on a level of better than bad. A damn sight short of better than average. In other words, it was reaching.

While I had to put something in my mouth every time Vin came on screen, to control my drool, I wasn’t so blinded by libido as to not see this sequel to the sleeper hit Pitch Black was, as sequels often go, a painful demise of all magic held in the original.

This has a lot to do with Vin himself.

See, while His Holy Hot-oilness shone through in Pitch Black (Vin Diesel and darkness all around...now there’s a plot), the cast of unknowns or vaguely identifiable faces each stood on their own rapidly running away from aliens feet. There was a balance, a symbiosis. Dare I say teamwork.

Chronicles, however, seems to be so in love with Vin (who can blame it) nobody else is allowed to come out and play.

Thandie Newton stands her ground some, and Karl Urban gets two thumbs up as best new frowner-boy in Tinsel Town (though after Lord of the Rings and Ghost Ship I’m wondering if that’s all he can do, and maybe he was raised by Blast-ended Skrewts and never learned to smile.)

But there are no baddies really equal to Riddick’s level of bad — I mean good - erhm, well “another kind of evil” guy. (Ah, for the good old days when good guys were good and bad guys were not hot.)

Anyhow, here are random notes I jotted down in the dark the few...many times I saw this movie.

• “Riddick.” Every man in the movie says his name like he’s in heat. There was even a scene where Riddick’s lying prone, in bondage, and a dude actually sits on his lap!

• Riddick sees in puce now — a pinky-purply colour. More evidence of gay solidarity?

• The planet Crematoria (The milk substitute?) is a rip-off from a Ray Bradbury short story. But such a planet, with such a sunrise would be close to a sun, thus revolving faster, thus time would take its toll differently, and people would age really fast.

• The Lord Marshal reminds me of nothing so much as an original Star Trek baddie: something oaf, something neutered, something borrowed and something buffoon. Can you spell c-a-m-p.

• When the Lord Marshal is described as “half alive and half something else” I wondered if they meant half paranoid schizophrenic. He exhibits the kind of dementia praerox, heberphrenic type often resulting from wearing huge faces on one’s shoulders.

• Somebody was seriously pissed off by the fact that in the first movie a cross-dressing girlie and a Black Moslem should have survived along with a non-white Mr Multi-facial. So naturally they kill off Imam and Jack. Lazy. Vindictive. Sucky storytelling.

• It dawns on me that in Pitch Black, “Richard b Riddick, escaped convict, murderer,” for all his bad-assness and the fear everyone feels for him, is never shown murdering anybody.

• How asinine to tell Riddick to “Stay away” yet take the thing he cared about the most, Jack/Keera, and drill holes in her neck. (Now there’s a religion that makes sure you get their point.)

• The best shot in the movie is the Riddick smoking shot — no, not cigarettes, his whole blessed body (when you’re hot you’re hot). It recalled the green-lit shot of him finally coming to shiv with Johns in the middle of the wild dark in Pitch Black. Either shot begs the bellow, “VIN DIESEL IS A GOD!” But as much as I love the man, if I ever saw him looking like that in real, I’d run a mile away and hide. Then I’d draw a picture.

• The end of this movie makes perfect sense. Hey, I’d get down on my knees for Riddick...just a little closer. Heh-heh.

Come Good!