I am a dead keen good scifi fan and I love this movie. Of course its a bit bloated, bombastic, and it has vin diesel in it (you can almost hear him saying to the director "film my jumping over this while i flex like crazy....). However it has some great actors in it - Judi Dench (?!), Tandi Newton, Colm Feore, Linus Roache, and NZ's own Karl Urban. But the great thing about this movie, is that its not afraid to take on a big subject - a race of inter-planetary "World Eaters", who, if they cannot convert you, will kill you. The effects are utterly superb - the sunrise on the planet Crematoria is a highlight, and is the bad guys invasion on Helion Prime. What I really love about this movie is the risks taken with the technology - which I havent seen in any other scifi - the "ion trails" left be slowly rotating space-craft, the "lensers" used by the bad guys to find people, the fact that craft use craft radiating black swirls of ant-matter to hover and move around, the bad guys flying citadels, the bad guy leader's powers (after he has seen the under-verse), and the way that soldiers are teleported to a planets surface. Great care has been taken with the tech, as well as the whole background and story of this universe. Quite frankly, this film is sadly underrated, and far more interesting that its quite sparse and one-note prequel and sequel.
Review of The Chronicles of Riddick
