Christopher Moore's Blog

Okay, I’ve ranted about no gravity and twenty-minute-long fight scenes that get boring, but I had to see Riddick because I loved Pitch Black.

If you like seeing ass-kicked, gravelly-voiced bad-asses. and aren’t particularly interested in continutity of plot, Riddick is your man. Also helps if you like the color pewter (is pewter a color?). Everything except Vin Diesle is pewter in this movie, which is okay, because it helps to pick him out of the background, sort of like that little girl in the red coat in Schindler’s List, except, you know, that Vin could probably kick her ass, but otherwise, pretty pewter.

People applauded when it was over. That’s a first this year. (And they weren’t applauding because it was over.)

No love story to mess up the action, gravity applies, Vin does not, will not, absolutely refuses to eat a lozenge to smooth out his throat, therefore he paralelles Olivier in his perfomance (and there is no doubt that Vin could also kick Olivier’s ass, even if Sir Lawrence was all Gothed-out in Hamlet-wear and brow-furrowing like a mother-fucker[and alive’ target=’_blank’>. Riddick trumps Heathcliff every time. Two kinds of heroic silence: brooding, and plotting your violent death. Riddick does not brood.)

Okay, maybe I’m over-reacting after Van Helsing, and The Day AFter Tomorrow but if you liked Pitch Black and T2, you’ll like Riddick.

My only complaint is that the fight scenes are shot a little tight, so at times you have to just take it on faith that Vin is the one who is kicking ass. (Spoiler: He is.)