Bad Trip

Via Roy Edroso, I've been catching up on the hugely entertaining hunt for the worst movie of all time. The rules make it fun: gotta have some stars; gotta be in wide release; etc. Neglected so far: The Chronicles of Riddick, the absolutely loony sequel to the modest and not-too-terrible Pitch Black of several years prior. In Pitch Black monsters jumped out and went boo! and you jumped in your seat and Vin Diesel launched a thousand dead-pans. The CoR, on the other hand, is positively grandiose in its incoherence. It's gloriously overstuffed.

Too often, movie trailers function as a Greatest Hits for the whole film, and this is especially true for action/adventure and SF flicks--you go to the movie and you realize that all the good stuff was in the trailer and the rest just blows, is nothing but those endless Jerry Bruckheimer sequences where we are introduced to members of the team (Black Dude, good with explosives; Brainy Guy, Steve Buscemi, Space Madness; White Action Star, grizzled team leader, daughter loves him, whatevs). The CoR hasn't got this problem. It's like watching a 130 minute trailer. You wonder if the editor passed out for holding his breath. You know how trailers cut scenes and dialogue out of sequence to subtly misdirect and so as not to give away the plot? The CoR does it too. Over 2 hours, and it didn't give away the plot. There are undead soldiers, and sword-and-sandal-type derring-do, and Mortal Kombat-style soul snatchers, and Judi Dench as some sort of diaphanous soothsaystress and planets that turn into fire and Thandi Newton's lips and endless mentions of something called the Underverse which is like the afterlife except . . . not. Not?

The ending clearly anticipates The Chronicles of Riddick II Colon Subtitle, and that's the most hilarious part of all. The studio could break the first one into its constituent parts and make twelve more movies without building a single new set.