The adage, “Lightning never strikes twice in the same place,” isn’t always true in Hollywood. Many sequels not only rise to the challenge of matching the success of the original but in some cases are revered even more than their predecessors. “The Godfather: Part II” and “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back” are examples of truly great sequels. Unfortunately, the same will never be said of the two newly released continuations I review this week: “Insidious Chapter 2” and “Riddick.”
The original “Insidious” was a creepy and effective horror movie that would have been nearly perfect if it hadn’t gone off the rails during the last reel. “Insidious 2” never goes off any rails because it never runs along any in the first place.
The story picks up where the original leaves off without explaining any of the preceding plot points. If you haven’t seen the first movie, or if you’ve forgotten anything since you saw it, you’ll likely be as lost as I was. Plot wise, the story aims to explain the back-story of the lady in black seen in “Chapter One.” Sadly, it does a poor job.
We begin with a piano that plays itself, a woman in white appearing in the house where the family from the first movie is now staying (the evil doesn’t haunt a particular dwelling; it follows the family), and the dad pulling a tooth out of his mouth and making tortured faces in the bathroom mirror. He’s presumably possessed, with his real spirit residing in an alternate dimension knows as the Further, but he seemed pretty upset about losing the tooth, so I’m not sure.
Whatever the case, the final 20 minutes involves a lot of people jumping on each other and screaming, and traveling between the real world and the Further as the family attempts to banish the lady in black. Oddly, the characters that go into the Further end up back at the house in the spirit realm, jumping on each other and screaming.
Director James Wan sets up some good scares, like he did in this summer’s “The Conjuring,” and there are a couple of decent twists, but overall, “Insidious Chapter 2” feels routine and pointless.
Two stars out of four. Rated PG-13 for terror and violence.
The first 30 minutes of “Riddick” are anything but routine and pointless. We find Riddick, a wanted man, on a sun-scorched planet, his face gashed and his leg out of joint. With no background details and nearly no dialogue, we watch as Riddick adapts to the environment and uses his wits to survive. It’s fascinating, clever filmmaking, like a sci-fi version of “Man vs. Nature.” Vin Diesel does some great work in these scenes; you can see the gears turning behind his glowing eyes as Riddick surveys the landscape to figure out his next move, and his terror turn to calm determination as he battles a nasty looking predator.
Eventually, we learn how Riddick wound up there. Then he stumbles upon a bounty hunter outpost and figures his only way off the rock is to send a distress signal letting his enemies know where he is, and then taking them out one by one and leaving on their ship.
That’s good thinking, too, but the clever filmmaking ends as soon as the bounty hunters drop ship and start talking. Not only is the dialogue painfully bad, but the delivery of the actors, barring Vin Diesel, is amateurish across the board. There are also a few laughably clunky vehicular sequences that betray what might have been the film’s limited special effects budget.
“Riddick” is best in its opening scenes, and when writer and director David Twohy lingers on the film’s otherworldly images. Some of the alien landscapes, as viewed on an IMAX screen, dropped my jaw. I also loved the shot of Riddick climbing an outcropping of rock during a lightning storm as he battled dozens of creatures no human would want to encounter. Those moments are few and far between after the bounty hunters show up, though, and someone always has to open his mouth and ruin the moment.
Two stars out of four. Rated R for violence, language and nudity.