unique HOMBRE in outer space movie with style enough to cover flaws

Rating: 7/10 (13 May 2007)

This is a very unique science fiction movie. It involves a spacecraft crashed on a planet with hostile life forms, some sort of birds that just cut people to shreds. It involves the characters who have to rely on a fairly interesting and definitive anti hero to help them. This could be called the HOMBRE of outer space movies. The chief character, Riddick, now appears a lot, and makes a very good anti hero. He is not vicious, just a survivor. He couldn't be more unlike the ridiculous characters of spaghetti Westerns who don't make a bit of sense. He is more akin to John Russell of HOMBRE. In fact, this movie's style is based on its strength of character development. There is a lot of action, and the characters are extremely credible, even if the plot is somewhat flimsy. But that's okay, because this is a movie which puts real people in an unbelievable situation, which is far superior to a movie which puts unbelievable people in a believable situation.