Science Fiction

Pitch Black Deja Vu is Riddick-ulously Familiar

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Riddick
  • IMDB: link

RiddickHow much do you love Pitch Black? For those passionate few whose fandom is strong enough to warrant sitting through a nearly identical (but inferior) film with all the originality of say Teen Wolf Too, Riddick may offer some late summer mindless entertainment. Everyone else may want to wait for home video for this IMAX version of a straight-to-DVD sequel that may not skimp on effects but could have used at least one new idea. Well, at least this one’s got Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff) in it.

Although it hasn’t as aged as well as I would like I will still admit to having some affection for Pitch Black, the 2000 sci-fi adventure about a murderous thief trapped on a world of monsters with people who want him dead, but I draw the line at the ridiculous trainwreck of a sequel that stalled this “franchise.” To call Chronicles of Riddick something akin to Underwold-level terrible is frankly being kind. That Riddick got made at all, even nine years later, and isn’t nausea-inducing is something of a minor miracle.

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Doctor Who – The Key to Time

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Doctor Who – The Key to Time
  • Wikipedia: link

Doctor Who - The Key to TimeIn honor of the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who we continue to look back at some old episodes of the series. While preparing a vacation for himself and K-9, The Doctor (Tom Baker) is approached by the White Guardian (Cyril Luckham), the physical representation of order in the universe, who requests the Time Lord’s help in recovering the six pieces of the Key to Time (a cube that maintains the equilibrium of time itself). Split into six segments and hidden around the universe, the Guardian tasks The Doctor with recovering each piece of the cube while warning to watch out for the Black Guardian who wants the cube for his own nefarious purposes.

To assist The Doctor in his quest the White Guardian gives The Time Lord a device to track the location of each segment as well as the arrogant Romana (Mary Tamm), a capbable but inexperienced Time Lord. Over six separate serials the two Time Lords and K-9 search for each disguised piece of the fractured Key to Time.

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Star Wars #8

/ / Comics

Star Wars #8As Luke and Wedge put themselves in danger by allowing themselves to be taken prisoner aboard the Star Destroyer Devastator (before escaping to go in search of the Empire’s spy inside the Rebel Alliance), Han and Chewie try to get themselves out of danger on Coruscant by separating and dealing with the pair of bounty hunters on their trail.

Aboard the Falcon, Chewie must deal with Bossk, while Han and the friendly local smuggler try to get the most out of their junk freighter and stay one step ahead of the deadliest bounty hunter in the galaxy – Boba Fett. Meanwhile Leia has snuck away from the fleet to fulfill her other objective and find a new home base for the Rebellion which takes her closest enough to stop at the ruins of Alderaan and make a surprising discovery of an old Clone War battleship hiding inside the asteroid field.

Star Wars #8 gives us separate stories involving all three of the big name characters as well offering readers appearances by Bossk, Boba Fett, and Darth Vader. Fans should feel right at home. Worth a look.

[Dark Horse, $2.99]

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Elysium

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Elysium
  • IMDB: link

ElysiumWith District 9 writer/director Neill Blomkamp crafted an original character study of a man (Sharlto Copley) trapped on the wrong side of the Earth’s treatment of alien refugees as a thinly-veiled metaphor for the social segregation in Blomkamp’s home country of South Africa. The result was one of 2009’s best films. Sadly Elysium, Blomkamp’s latest, is no District 9.

While dealing with similar themes of class warfare, inequalities, and a greedy one-percent, Elysium trades in metaphor for far less subtle preaching about the evils of social inequality between the haves and have nots.

The haves include the wealthiest members of the human race who have abandoned their world to live in luxury on the space station Elysium, leaving the polluted planet to the less fortunate. The inequality doesn’t end there, however. Whereas as the rich partake of miraculous medical advancements that can literally cure any affliction in the matter of seconds, the rest of the world is left with nothing more advanced than current medical devices and training.

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Shockingly, R.I.P.D. isn’t D.O.A.

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: R.I.P.D.
  • IMDB: link

R.I.P.D.Based on the comic series by Peter M. Lenkov, R.I.P.D. stars Ryan Reynolds as a recently slain dirty cop who is drafted by the Rest In Peace Department for his unique skill set and sent back into the land of the living to catch escaped souls hiding out on Earth. To teach him the ropes, Nick (Reynolds) is paired with Roy Pulsipher (Jeff Bridges), an persnickety lawman straight out of the Old West who has hunted souls for centuries.

The comparisons to Men in Black are too obvious to ignore, but R.I.P.D. does have one thing going for it that the MIB franchise has been missing since the late 1990’s: a fresh take. As goofy and unoriginal as the concepts behind R.I.P.D. are, the movie puts its own spin on things while delivering an impressive production design as well as sense of fun missing from far too many of this summer’s movies. The weapons of the film are a mix between MIB and Hellboy while the design of R.I.P.D. headquarters, once again borrowing heavily on other films (most notably MIB), creates a nice mix of out-of-control underworld bureaucracy and an incredibly clean police station.

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