Pitch Black: pretty good!

[The Hodag]

NeverWanderer was reminding me about this flick the other day (only ever saw the first one) and I rewatched it for the first time since, oh, probably when it first hit DVD. Very different from what I remembered. Maybe I was retroactively mapping Vin Diesel's later flicks onto it, but I'd forgotten it's really more of a survival/suspense flick than a straight-up actioneer.

And it's pretty good. Got a diverse cast to drop into its potboiler scenario, and the interesting approach of having no full-bore villains. Even the assholes are kind of sympathetic! Nice bleached-out cinematography. Two cute chicks in the cast, but neither played for sex objects for even a minute. Cool novelty premise. Great opening crash sequence.

And Diesel's Riddick is a memorable anti-hero, maybe the first original film hero of the 2000s (who else we got? Jack Bauer, Jason Bourne, maybe a few others).

Next up, Chronicles of Riddick...

[nihilance]

NeverWanderer was reminding me about this flick the other day (only ever saw the first one) and I rewatched it for the first time since, oh, probably when it first hit DVD. Very different from what I remembered. Maybe I was retroactively mapping Vin Diesel's later flicks onto it, but I'd forgotten it's really more of a survival/suspense flick than a straight-up actioneer.

And it's pretty good. Got a diverse cast to drop into its potboiler scenario, and the interesting approach of having no full-bore villains. Even the assholes are kind of sympathetic! Nice bleached-out cinematography. Two cute chicks in the cast, but neither played for sex objects for even a minute. Cool novelty premise. Great opening crash sequence.

And Diesel's Riddick is a memorable anti-hero, maybe the first original film hero of the 2000s (who else we got? Jack Bauer, Jason Bourne, maybe a few others).

Next up, Chronicles of Riddick...

Jack Sparrow is another I'd say.

[The Hodag]

Jack Sparrow is another I'd say.

Most definitely.

[THWIP!]

I rewatched this recently too and still liked it as much as I did when I saw it for the first time all those years ago.

[c. page]

it is quite good. wasn't impressed by the sequel, but i thought that pitch black still holds up fairly well.

[The Human Target]

It is way better than it has any right to be.

But Chronicles is terrible, avoid it like the black death.

However the Chronicles of Riddick video game is fucking tits.

[The Hodag]

It is way better than it has any right to be.

But Chronicles is terrible, avoid it like the black death.

However the Chronicles of Riddick video game is fucking tits.

Even if just to have a little fun revisiting the character, I gotta see Chronicles.

Now as to the game...that was for the original XBox, right? I got a 360 fairly recently and now that I think about it, I don't even know if it's backwards compatible or anything. But a few weeks back I did download the new Riddick game (a retooling of the original, did I hear?) and after playing it for just a minute or two I decided it sucked. But I was playing a lot of demos that day, so maybe it just struck me wrong.

[Akira]

I keep meaning to pick this up on Blu-ray one of these days. I've only seen it once or twice on cable, but loved it.

[Ashwin Pande]

Yeah Pitch Black was pretty good, surprisingly good.

Riddick sucked. I fell asleep while watching it. It's pretty impressive how they made an action/adventure sci-fi movie with some interesting ideas into such a snoozefest.

[Jef UK]

I love this movie.

NOT FOR ME!!!!!!