Pitch Black 2: Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
- written January 2005
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Richard B. Riddick is one of the few surviving Furyons, fierce warriors who have been captured and turned into an alien race, Necromongers. He is still running from the law since the events from 5 years ago and only once these destructive armies have attacked the home planet of his friend, Imam, will Riddick do something about it. In normal times, evil should be fought by good, but in times like this, it should be fought by another kind of evil.
Overall: Watching this film, I kept thinking..."Are they just making this crap up as they go along?" What makes "Star Wars" and "Lord of the Rings" so brilliant, was that whatever planets, cities, groups of people showed up on screen, you had this feeling as if those places & people actually existed. As a viewer, you could buy it. It looked and sounded impressive enough. But in this film, you just look at the names and places and just wonder how desperate they were when making things up. Look at the last line of my summary above, it’s taken from an exact quote from one of the characters referring to needing Riddick’s help. How anyone can expect one man to defeat an army of millions is interesting...but frankly we’ve seen nothing in 2 films convincing us that Riddick is evil or even a bad guy...he’s got attitude problems, sure. But evil???? The film really just comes off as nothing more than some guy going from one planet to another to have some action-filled scenes and then off to another planet. There’s really no character development in this film and they just re-wrote the entire character of Jack. As you may remember, “Jack” was a 12-year-old girl who basically wanted to be an outlaw. Now she’s 17 (going on 25), with a new name (more girly) and can kick some ass. It’s sad to note that the original actress tried out for her own role...and lost. Apparently she wasn’t enough of a “bad-ass” and didn’t do enough kickboxing to earn her role back. I’m sorry but since when did this sci-fi series become the next Cynthia Rothrock film? Is this a martial arts film with UFC fight scenes or a science fiction film? As for the plot, there is more in the narration about the Necromongers than we actually see from them in the film. Something about them being “half-dead” beings who want to visit the “UnderVerse” (no explanation as to what that is) and meanwhile just conquer every planet in the meantime (no reason why). They just conquer planets and keep going...and yet can’t stop one guy...who has some magical powers which he never had before and some odd premonition of him as the ultimate warrior in the universe. It’s really just a made-up film that never filled its own holes because it had too many fight scenes to cram in. As for the problems being a sequel or a continuation to the first film, frankly the first film really works for the all the reasons this film doesn’t. The first film has a bunch of different characters that are brought together for a common goal with a common mystery to solve. Regardless of their own agendas, which make a difference, they still have the same major goal. It’s humans battling scary monsters. It’s simple, it’s concise and it’s intelligent. This film pretends there is a common goal (Necromongers) but basically Riddick has a bunch of other things to do and only tries to save the universe once a friend of his (who he has shabbily treated) gets kidnapped, solely because the bad guys want to kill him because of some fictional bedtime story that almost no one has ever heard about. And because everyone has their own agenda and each agenda gets lots of focus, the bad guys truly never get their time on screen to show how truly diabolical they are. It’s really not a sequel at all but a continuation of one character. And even with that, this character spends more time showing his "goodness" than truly emphasizing his "evilness" which basically undoes the great storylines from the first film. Fortunately I spent no money on this viewing either in the theatres or the rental store (or Netflix), as I had a "rent one, get one free" offer to Hollywood Video and picked up the "Unrated Director’s Cut." I’m a massive believer in leaving films as intended and 99% of the time find the “director’s cuts” better than the released versions. 95% of the time, I even find the deleted scenes necessary to make films more cohesive. So, of the 8 minutes of stuff in this film, none of it are the fights...and in fact one website reported the exact details of the original film, the director’s cut and the deleted scenes that were left out of the director’s cut. The phrases describing the differences between the film version and everything else on the dvd included these words: “discusses,” “reveals the truth,” “speech is longer” “sub-plot is restored,” and “earlier introduction.” Basically they left the plot on the cutting room floor and kept the “action” in. Taken as a whole...it’s a mess of a film, which needed more work, or better yet, someone with the chutzpah enough to say..."Put those pencils down. Don’t write another word until you’ve really thought of the first film’s legacy." Comparison: Raiders of the Lost Ark meets Dune |
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