Z-Reviews || Movies || Review

What would you do if you crash landed on a strange alien planet? Well that is what spacecraft officer Fry (Radha Mitchell) has to find out after her ship gets pelted with space debris and has to make an emergency landing. However Fry and her passengers quickly discover a bigger problem as flesh eating bat like creatures are alerted to their presence. But there is no need to worry because these creatures are afraid of the light and the planet is lit up by 3 suns giving it virtually 24 hours of daylight…unless there is an eclipse that is. Oh-oh, these poor guys can’t seem to catch a lucky break.

The surviving members of the spacecraft include Fry, who I already mentioned, a bounty hunter named Johns (Cole Hauser), his prisoner Riddick (Vin Diesel), a devout Muslims preacher, an antiquities dealer, and a whole bunch of nameless people who are going to get slaughtered by the alien creatures along the way. All the characters have internal issues as well as conflicts with each other. However, we never understand why they are that way and quite frankly we don’t care since the dialogue is rather boring.

So what is so cool about this movie? Well, once the planet in engulfed in darkness (because of an eclipse) Riddick becomes a key asset to the group since he can see in the dark. He tells us that he had a surgical operation performed on him in prison which makes his eyes glow and allows him to see in the dark. What else is there? Unfortunately - not that much. The CGI creatures are neither scary nor impressive and the night-vision effect of looking through Riddick’s eyes also gets boring very quickly.

What do other people see in this film that I don’t? Maybe I need to get one of those eye jobs that Riddick has so I can appreciate this movie. Aside from a few cool concepts like Riddick’s eyes there is nothing interesting about this movie. The characters are poorly developed, the dialogue is boring, and even the fighting sequences are lame. Is this supposed to be a Sci-Fi adventure or a spooky horror film? It has elements of both, but they don’t blend together. Even if you’re a fan of Vin Diesel, I would recommend to skip this movie and try something else unless you’re stuck on an alien planet and have no way to get out.