Zombie Column: Riddick

There are many, many people who are probably making the Riddick-ulous pun right now, so I won't be joining them (just standing beside them and pointing it out a lot). Unless, of course, I wasn't referring to the adjective, but instead the spell from Harry Potter, able to turn a bad movie into a good one. Sadly, my magic is just not that strong, and Riddick remained as it was.

We saw the movie up at CrossIron, although not in the fancy 3D UltraAVX theatre. Riddick wasn't in 3D, so I guess they didn't want to waste the extra money they could charge on it, or something. Still, good theatre. Previews for the week were Oldboy, Runner Runner, and 47 Ronin (which had a surprisingly long trailer). I could go for Oldboy (even though I know all the spoilers for the movie it remade) and 47 Ronin, because who doesn't like Keanu Reeves or Japanese martial arts movies with supernatural actions scenes?

Riddick opens with the titular character abandoned on some desert world (a little more varied than Tatooine, but not much. More like Geonosis, actually). There, he battles the elements and the predatory native creatures, all of whom seem to want to kill him. And that's all he does for about the first third of the movie. It's boring. Wow, is it ever boring. There's a brief flashback to the Necromongers, and then it's back to camping on death world. Whoo.

After that, he goes exploring onto the slightly nicer part of the world. It's more of a tundra than a desert. He comes across a Merc station (put there by who knows to house and re-supply any mercenaries that need it). Then he sees a rainstorm and decides that enough's enough, time to get off this rock. The only problem is that the only way off involves being captured by bounty hunters, so Riddick calls them over from whatever planet they were on.

Two bounty hunter crews arrive, and there's a lot of setting up, and patrolling, and Riddick gaining intelligence by staying far away and staring at them. Then there's some offscreen killing, and some really lame action and then the movie ends.

So, this movie is terrible. The first part is slow, and the second part is slow, and the third part is slow and lame. I can understand now why it took so much trouble to produce (Evan was telling me Vin Diesel had to mortgage his house to get the necessary funds). I mean, who would have looked at this script and said "Yeah, I want to make this. It stars an action hero with cool powers in an action hero franchise, only this time, he doesn’t do any action!"?

Is there anything redeeming about this movie? Well, after this, they won't be able to make any more. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, since I liked Chronicles of Riddick (I'm the only one). So the chance for another one of those is gone. But if they wanted to make more movies like this one, then it's a good thing they won't be able to.

Other than that, there are one or two chuckles to be had. Also, for fans of Battlestar Galactica, Katee Sackhoff is in it, and it's always nice when TV actors get roles in movies. I mean, she's in a completely unnecessary topless scene, so maybe it's not so good either. The movie had already earned it's R-rating with topless scenes in the flashbacks, we don't need famous actors doing them just for funsies.

All in all, I'm ranking this as a Free on TV movie. Not the absolute worst we've seen (Hi, Last Airbender), but probably ranking somewhere between Wrath of the Titans and Faster.

The World's End

It's the end of the world! Or at least, The World's End. Which is the movie we saw on Sunday night before Labor Day. Evan's back in town for the week, so we put the word out and saw the movie with Jeff, Steve, and Norm.

Preview were for Don Jon, Machete Kills, Last Vegas (The Hangover with old people) and The Family, which was probably pitched as a comedy sequel to Goodfellas. The latter two have Robert De Niro, and Evan is in on both. If I want to see old people, I'd rather see Schwarzenegger and Stallone in Escape Plan, but I suppose I could be talked into The Family.

Anyway, The World's End is the capper to the Cornetto Trilogy, whose previous entrants were Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. All of them star Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, are directed by Edgar Wright, and are written by Pegg and Wright. All of them are also spoofs of genres. Shaun of the Dead spoofed zombies (and Romance!), Hot Fuzz spoofed action movies, and now The World's End spoofs Invasion of the Body Snatcher type movies.

It opens with a flashback to 1990, when a group of five kids graduated from school and got hammered, because that's what one does when one celebrates. The tried the in/famous Golden Mile, the feat of having a pint at each of the twelve local pubs. Now, British beer is kinda strong (or so I heard) and twelve pints is not an insignificant amount. Combine that with whatever available substances there are to smoke (illegal or not), and you've got the makings of a terrible hangover. Two friends had to drop out early, and the rest made it nine deep before winding up on a hillside watching the sunrise over their vomit stained shoes. Whee.

Flashforward to the present time, and we get the leader of the pack, Gary King, telling this to a support group of some kind. It might be AA, it might be a rehab centre, it might be some other kind of therapy. One of the other guests asks if he regrets not making it to all twelve. A plan is hatched.

Meanwhile, the rest of the friends are decently successful. They're all in jobs that require suits and ties, and they're all visited by King to make the trip home to undertake the Golden Mile again. A lot of cajoling later, they all agree. I doubt they actually want to go, but they seem like the type of people who are too polite to say no to an old friend, even if he's still acting like a teenager 20 years later.

So they all meet up at the train station and are picked up by King, who takes them on a road trip home in the same car they used to party in 20 years ago (nicknamed "The Beast", although I'm pretty sure guys don't name their cars). They check into a hotel and begin their quest, and things start to get weird. And progressively worse.

There are many times during the night when it would behoove them to turn tail and run back to London, but King won't let them. He's bound, bent, and determined to finish the Golden Mile. Come Hell or High Water. Mostly Hell.

Towards the end of the movie, we find out why in a surprisingly emotional scene. I shouldn't be surprised by now. Wright and Pegg always manage to slot in these one or two genuine moments into their comedies. In Shaun of the dead, it was the titular character refusing to shoot his friend, even after he had been turned. In Hot Fuzz, there was Angel desperately calling for Danny after the police station exploded, or when Angel is convinced Danny's a bad guy. These sudden heartfelt moments in the midst of comedy. I like them. Not long enough to drag the movie down, but it helps us get to know the characters and makes us like them more.

It's easy to like the four other characters, but King starts the movie off like a jerk, and doesn't really get better until near the end. But it's explained, and we actually like him at the end. Not like, say, A Good Day to Die Hard, where John McClane starts the movie off like a jackass and by the end, is still just a jackass. That's not explained, and really annoying, considering how much we liked him in the previous movies.

So this movie does a better job of character development. You know what else it does a good job of? Well, the comedy's there, but you should know that by now. But they did a really good job on the action. I was pleasantly surprised by how much action there was in this movie, and how good it was. I mean, there wasn't enough to fill an action movie, but it was definitely enough to bill it as an action-comedy, like The Other Guys. Great stuff.

The music wasn't really anything I notice. So pass on that. The ending went in a completely different direction than any of us were expecting. The last scene made sense, but none of us really like it. And finally, Rosamund Pike was in it, which is always a bonus. So it gets the Theatre Rating from me.