» Diesel-Powered or Bombs Away?
“The Chronicles of Riddick” has really been the only blockbuster advertised for this summer I’ve actually been looking forward to. Everything else is already proven material or has a built-in audience, but “Chronicles” offers a new trend: character continuation without the standard sequel rehash.
Of course, this is always a risk. From the Hollywood Studio Playbook, a sequel should be exactly the same, only bigger and more expensive. The formula is usually %125 more expensive and %75 of the original’s take, which is why a third film is usually fodder pushing the “Why, God, why?” boundary.
But when the original is several years old and was a low-budget cult hit to begin with, you have the makings of another “Terminator” or “Alien” franchise as long there’s a fresh approach to the entire production. It may also be important that the stars have aligned, Venus is passing in front of the sun, “Garfield the Movie” will likely tank, the critics hate every frame of the film, and former President Reagan has already been mourned this week.
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I find myself looking forward to a few movies this summer. Spiderman 2 and King Authur are two that come to mind.
Although you are right as the overall quality of this summer’s (And this year in general) movies is low. Hollywood is in full Remake and Sequal mode and the only movies that have some originality are foreign or Independant (Although there is quite a bit of crap in those areas as well). This year does still have some possible good ones on the way though (Blade III, AvP, Lemony Snicket, etc.) so we will see how it turns out.
I find myself eager anticipating 2005 though with movies like Star Wars Episode III, Constantine, and Batman Begins . I just hope they live up to the hype =)
I saw Riddick and I wouldn’t call it an Aliens… however, my expectations were SOOO low that I was blown away, aside from the dialogue, I thought it really was quite well done. Good pacing, good cinematography, some of the external shots of the Necromonger fleets could have used variety, but good set design over-all. I wish they’d explored the scary undead ghosty things in the circular room. Wild.
For a sci-fi movie, they just didn’t provide enough exposition about the races (Elementals? Homeworlds? Furions? Where from?) or technology or whatnot, so it was kinda sci-fi light.
Avp will be lame. Spider-Man 2 will probably be freaking awesome… but my expectations are so high, that I could be crushed.
What makes you think AvP will be lame? All early reviews and info say its one of the best of the two franchises and it really has the feel of the original late 80’s comics (With some major storyline changes).