Doom (probably with spoilers)

Yes another Karl Urban movie review. I promise to start watching other stuff, but you know, he's really hot! Which means watching him is fun, watching some of the movies he's been in, not always so fun. Doom was a fun one though. This movie makes Karl Urban look like a bad ass all the way through. He's a tough marine who has a tragic back story who rescues his sister. Everyone together now aaawwww. Also he beats the shit out of the Rock, how often does THAT happens?
If you don't know Doom is a first person shooter game that came out in the 90's, it revolutionized and changed the gaming industry so much that I'm sure it can still be felt there. I'm only guessing in the last part, cause I'm not a gamer. But I knew what Doom was and what the look was and I'm sure lots of people who have no interest in video games know about Doom too. The movie takes the look and some of the places and has a go at it. The plot is apparently different from the games, apparently the games have to do with transport technology testing on Mars that leads to a portal to Hell, yup real scientific. The movie on the other had deals with an archaeology dig on Mars that finds a civilization with an extra chromosome that makes some of them super human and others monsters. And the rest of the movie is blowing shit up, killing monsters, yelling at the scientists and the Sarge killing everyone in the facility including survivors. It's a really fun movie, but don't expect a lot from it, and possibly don't watch it in high resolution, you spot a more mistakes that you care for.

The best scene in the movie to me is the first person shooter scene, which for a layman looks like what you think the video game should look like.

Chronicles of Riddick(probably spoilers)

As I continue watching as much of Karl Urban's work as I can, and with the new Riddick movie coming out in September I rewatched the Chronicles of Riddick the other night. First off I'm a fan of Pitch Black, where Riddick is from, it's a great sci-fi/horror movie, lots of suspense and twists and Vin Diesel is just amazing in it. I did have a Vin Diesel kick for a while, but that was around XXX and it didn't last long after that. I still think Vin Diesel is a good actor when he's given good work, however he does make bad decisions when he's given control, case in point, Chronicles of Riddick. Vin Diesel had more say it what went on with this squeal and he used it to try and bring some fantasy to a world that had great sci-fi elements that could have been somewhat plausible. Some of the things that made Pitch Black great was the fact that we were just given a little taste of a universe with enough of our own elements in there to make it seem familiar. There was a Muslim 'teacher' with three young boys on their way to New Mecca. We don't know what happened to the old Mecca, but we know that every Muslim is supposed to make a trip to Mecca in their lifetime. There's no politics in Pitch Black, there's a criminal who's being returned to prison, but he has something that they need on that planet, eyes that can see in the dark. As the movie goes on though you do find that Riddick is not only someone quite scary, but also very smart with his own code. It's a really good movie. Moving on to Chronicles of Riddick however you find that maybe we should have left Riddick well enough alone.

Chronicles of Riddick starts with him on the run from Mercenaries, again. This time it's his friend from the first movie looking for him because there is an invading army of Necromancers on their way. A group of people who live somewhere between life and death, at least that's what I gather here. In this movie we learn that Riddick is a Furion, so he's not even human. Now when Riddick was a baby there was a solider in the Necromancer army who saw a fortune-teller who told him a Furion would kill him so he started killing all the Furion male babies by warping their umbilical cord around their neck, which is one of the few things we learn about Riddick in the first movie that he was left in a trash can with his impilical cord wrapped around his neck. Now that solider is in charge of the Necromongers, thinking everything's ok. He comes to Hellion Prime where the 'holy man', as Riddick calls him, is living with his family. So Riddick is on Hellion Prime when the Necromongers invade, this is where we meet Vaako, who is a commander in the Nercomonger army. He's got the worst haircut I've ever seen! Ok maybe not the worst, but it's pretty bad. I bet Karl Urban walked around wearing hats every time they called cut, it's pretty bad. I wouldn't be surprised if a stipulation of him reprising his role in the new Riddick movie was that he doesn't have to have that hair cut again. And here's where I half leave off plot and just talk about the costumes and other random stuff I don't get about this movie. Are there any humans in this universe? Cause Riddick is a Furion, Judy Dench is in this movie, which I'm still wonder how they got her to do it, as an Elemental, and the Necromongers were all 'something else' so is everyone else human? Or are they other things? For that matter what the hell is a Furion? I mean he has eyes that he can see in the dark, that he claims he paid a doctor for, and he's been killing and evading capture and escaping from places for a long time, which would explain all the skills he's developed over the years. So what makes him different from humans? Is it just where he's from? And Vaako's wife, what is up with her? Is there no way for a woman on her own to rise to power, so she has to do it through him? And clearly Vaako is a sexual submissive to her, there's no other way that relationship works. And how come she's the only one wearing gold on that ship/palace thing with four heads that they fly around in. I mean could they make it more obvious that she's power hunger? And what the hell are the quasi-dead? The movie leaves with way more questions than it ever did answer.

I think if there had been a better script and it wasn't attached to Riddick, like if it was a movie on it's own, it might have done ok. But with it being added to the universe that was established so eloquently in Pitch Black, it just does't work at all. So far the trailers for the new Riddick movie look good, back to hunting for Riddick. Vaako is back, but he hasn't been in any of the trailers I've seen so far, so I'm unsure in what capacity he's back and weather that hair will make a reappearance. The more simple the plot the better for this franchise, just have to wait and see.

Judge Dredd Movie Review(probably with spoilers)

With my Karl Urban kick in full swing and one bad movie down I finished downloading another of his movies, Judge Dredd. I knew that it was going to be bad from the beginning, being Judge Dredd and all. But this was particularly bad. It wasn't even like a real movie, it was like a long extended episode of some show. I'll admit that I haven't seen the original Judge Dredd or read the comics.

In this movie Dredd has a telepathic rookie he's taken on a homaside investigation, which turns into a drug bust, which turns into them being trapped in a building with all its residents trying to kill them. The action stuff and all the stuff between Dredd and the rookie would have been alright fun bad action movie stuff, but the 'future' drug they had in the movie was the stupidest drug that I had EVER heard of! It was called 'slow-mo' which was supposed make the brain perceive time slower, which mean super slow-mo shots for about in total half the movie! 

Don't see this movie, even if you are a Karl Urban fan, he's got the helmet on the whole time and he's frowning.