Musings of a Geezer

Watched three movies last nite.  First Chronicles of Riddick – Pitch Black.  Plot – ship crashes on a planet where there are creatures that like the darkness and eat people.  A lot of red shirts in the crew, of course.  VinDiesel is badass as usual.  Acting is good by all.  Plot is predictable, but the action is continous and well shot.  And I never felt like I was watching a movie being shot.  I hate it when suddenly you realize they are just actors on a set with cameramen and crew standing around.  I’m glad I didn’t pay to see this in a theater but it will be an entertaining rental.

I followed this one up with Chronicles of Riddick – Dark Fury .  It sorta surprised me that this was an animated feature.  But once I got used to that, it was pretty good.  I reminded me of the artwork from Heavy Metal .  It takes off where Pitch Black ended.  Again a predictable plot, but action was good and it was well drawn.    So for both the Riddicks, I give them a 6 out of 10 – good entertainment from a rental.

The last movie I watched yesterday was – War Games – The Dead Code.  This was a waste of an hour and half.  Plot was very predictable.  But the action was convoluted.  Several action scenes had actors running down the road in front of cars chasing them but the cars couldn’t seem to catch them, huh?  And it was very uneven. Slow character development scenes and silly characters followed by meaningless unorganized chase scenes.  The bad computer had female persona and they kept ‘trying to shut the bitch down’.  Acting was just mediocre, so hopefully this was just a training film for them.  So rating is 3 out 10.  So I’m sure Matthew Brodrick is rolling over in his grave…er wait..he isn’t dead yet.