A lot can happen in four years.  For starters, somebody like Vin Diesel can go from A Decent Performer in Ensemble Films (Boiler Room, Saving Private Ryan, The Fast and the Furious) to becoming The Biggest, Dumbest Action Star This Side of That Guy Who Used to be a Wrestler.  Also, four years can take a character like Diesel's Richard B. Riddick – the bald convicted killer/anti-hero of David Twohy's Pitch Black – and turn him into Rob Zombie.  That's who Riddick looks like, after spending the last half-decade on the lam from unscrupulous bounty hunters.

Once Riddick is found, however, he's dropped into some crazy scenario about a power-mad race (the Necromongers) that wants to hang out in their version of paradise (the Underverse).  I don't know about you, but when I hear names like that, I start tuning out and thinking about different kinds of pie. Maybe that's why I had no idea who the people Riddick found himself surrounded by were, where they were going, or why they were going there.  Truth is, I don't think anyone will care too much about any of those superfluous things, either.  Who would, when you can have a seizure over the film's hyper-editing and HR Giger-inspired art direction.

Chronicles is – for a picture that already has a videogame spin-off, an animated prequel, and two more films in the hopper – way better than it should be.  When it comes to taking a crap story and turning it into something watchable, this Twohy feller sure knows what he's doing.  Granted, Chronicles has about as much to do with Pitch Black as Saddam does with Al Qaeda, but that's beside the point, right?  Chronicles reminded me much more of Stargate, with its North African-type look (maybe the terrorists have already won) to both the characters and the sets.  It also reminded me of Minority Report, but only in that one scene where Twohy rips off that film's Precog characters.  Also of note: There aren't any werewolves, per se, though there are creatures that look an awful lot like werewolves.  That makes five movies in a row with lupine creatures for me (The Day After Tomorrow, Harry Potter 3, Van Helsing, and Andrea Martin in New York Minute).

Speaking of Tomorrow, Chronicles has a couple of scenes where characters are forced to outrun the weather.  Instead of a crippling cold, they're being chased by a sunbeam that raises temperatures to 700 degrees.  I mention this only because characters protect themselves from this ungodly heat by hiding behind rocks, and that makes me laugh.

So does the fact that Judi Dench is in a Vin Diesel movie.  But if you think about it, Dame Judi is no stranger to Dumb Action, since she's also appeared in the last few awful offerings of James Bond.  Colm Feore (Paycheck) does more of his bad guy schtick; Thandie Newton (The Truth About Charlie) tries but can't hold a candle to Laura Linney in terms of Lady Macbething up the joint; and Karl Urban makes you say, "Hey, where do I know that guy from?" (he was Eomer in The Lord of the Rings).  Meanwhile, Alexa Davalos (Angel) made my tongue hang out, and if that's all you ask of your action movies, you'll be as happy as an unemployed boob waiting in line to look at a box full of some smelly old ex-actor.

1:57 -

for intense sequences of violent action and some language