"I'm co-starring with this muscle-bound
oaf?!?  Where's my agent???  I want to
talk to my agent, NOW!!!"

The Chronicles of Riddick
Review written by: Alex Sandell

Pitch Black was a stylish, suspenseful and sexy sci-fi thriller released in 2000.  The film starred Vin Diesel as Richard B. Riddick, an escaped convict with a taste for blood and a sixth-sense for self-preservation that bordered on sociopathic.  Riddick was an anti-hero in the vain of Schwarzenneger's Terminator or Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name.  Four years later, Universal Studios and Pitch Black co-screenwriter, David Twohy decided to take advantage of Vin Diesel's stardom and create a franchise surrounding a more gentile and heroic homicidal escaped convict than the one we were introduced to half a decade ago.

The film begins with a caveman looking Riddick being pursued through the icy wilderness of Planet U.V. 6 by four mercs (mercenaries) looking to capture the Butcher Bay escapee and collect on the 1.5 million dollar bounty put on his head.  Riddick makes quick work of three of the mercenaries in a crowd-pleasing panorama of fast cuts, slashes, screams and snappy one-liners.  Riddick finds out from the surviving merc, Toombs (Nick Chinlund) that the bounty was put on his head by Imam (Keith David), the cleric he reluctantly saved in Pitch Black.  Realizing that there's no such thing as friends, a betrayed Riddick steals Toombs' ship and flies to planet Helion for a reunion with his traitorous spiritual "pal." 

Imam explains to Riddick that he put the bounty on his head in a convoluted attempt to get the anti-hero to come to the planet and join in the war against the Necromongers, an impious army destroying civilizations by shrouding them in darkness and then converting the survivors to the Necromongers' "faith." If the survivors resist, their souls are pulled from their bodies and they die a quick death.  As with Pat Robertson and his brainwashed cronies, it's believe or be damned. 

Aereon (Judi Dench) informs Riddick that he is a Furyan.  Possibly the last of his kind.  I started worrying that she would tell him that he was immaculately conceived by midichlorians.  She does let him know that it was foretold that the last Furyan would kill Lord Marshal (Colm Feore), the half-dead Necro supreme leader.  Suddenly the fate of the galaxy hangs in the balance of a self-centered thug (similar to the fate of Planet Earth being determined by George W. Bush) -- Is Riddick up to the task?  Not unless it involves saving his own sorry ass.  But we do get to see the softer side of Riddick this time. 

In Pitch Black, Riddick wore the word "fuck" like a badge of honor.  In the incredible XBOX vide game prequel to both Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick, Vin Diesel cusses more than any man rightfully should, without getting a bar of Lever2000 shoved between his lips to wash out part # 163 -- the dirty mouth. 

In the PG-13 Chronicles of Riddick, we only get to hear the man spit out the "F" word once, and it's within the first ten minutes of the film.  Maybe the character was then converted.  Maybe it was midichlorians.  Who knows? 

The kinder, gentler Riddick risks his own life to save Kyra (Alexa Davalos); the girl thought to be a boy and called "Jack" in Pitch Black.  Riddick finds that Kyra's grown into a cynical and hot-tempered fighter of a woman, during the five years since he saved her from the planet of eclipse-feeding beasts back in the Taurus system. 

In The Chronicles of Riddick, Riddick is almost a father to Kyra.  When he finds out that she trained to be a Merc, only to be betrayed by the mercenaries and sold into slavery, you can see the pain in his eyes (or at least you could, if Vin Diesel could act). Apparently Riddick cares about somebody other than himself.  But there's no time for any of that bonding we saw between Natalie Portman and Jean Reno in The Professional.  There's really no time for anything other than loud explosions and numerous confrontations between Riddick and an odd assortment of "bad" people. 

Nobody can accuse David Twohy of not being ambitious.  Taking a sequel to a small sci-fi thriller and attempting to turn it into a science-fiction epic is akin to Adam Herz deciding the next chapter of the American Pie series should be a tragic romance similar in nature to Titanic. 

Combining elements of Hamlet, Dune, Star Wars, Star Trek and Vin Diesel running in slow-motion; The Chronicles of Riddick essentially becomes William Shakespeare's first video game.  But bigger isn't always better, and there isn't a second of this film that matches the claustrophobic, haunting feel of Pitch Black.  Pitch Black was a movie with Vin Diesel; The Chronicles of Riddick is a Vin Diesel movie. 

Twohy forgot what made the first film featuring Riddick memorable: it embraced its low-budget and knew not to show too much.  In Chronicles, we see all the monsters, the spaceships, the cultish armies and assorted individuals being disintegrated in the blistering 700 degree sun (but, amazingly, shade from a couple of rocks will prevent you from burning).  The CG in the film is generally pathetic and it doesn't take long for the audience to figure out that these movies are best left in the dark.  Things are scarier there, and mid-level budgeted movies are more enjoyable (see the original Jaws, for a good example).

That's not to say that I didn't enjoy The Chronicles of Riddick.  I just thought it was too crammed with everything to really give us much of anything.  The plot was similar to one of those stupid He-Man and the Masters of the Universe type movies from the 80's.  The Necromongers were a cross between the Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation and those nerdy bad guys from Star Trek: Nemesis. The real reason to attend this film is to watch Riddick fight, see Riddick run and listen to Riddick's one-liners.  Riddick is the character Vin Diesel was born to play.  And the set designers gave him quite a few interesting playgrounds to let the baritone voiced actor do his stuff.

The sets in the film are wonderful to look at -- I was particularly impressed with the underground prison set.  The interiors were as dark and depressing as you would expect the inside of a "for-profit" prison to look, and it was the closest in feel to what we saw in Pitch Black.  The Necromongers' interiors were as warped and unforgiving as the evil cult-race, itself.  The Basilica spacecraft where the final battles take place really did feel like something out of a futuristic Hamlet.  But the comparisons with a Vin Diesel movie and a William Shakespeare play end there.

The Chronicles of Riddick needs work.  It's not a bad movie to attend on a hot summer afternoon, but you won't walk out counting the days before you can own it on DVD.  What you see in the ads is what you get.  The movie should have stuck with its original R rating.  There are visible edits that take away from the "violent" scenes.  Riddick would hang his head in shame. 

Richard B. Riddick is an R rated character.  The PG-13 rating of this film shows its commercial intent.  Ironically, almost nobody will like this as much as its R rated predecessor.  The scares are gone.  The thrill is over.  We've been given enough third-grade Star Wars clones, already -- including those Star Wars prequels Lucas has been dishing out. 

The Chronicles of Riddick is something a step or two above mediocre, to watch when you have nothing better to do.  As the REAL Riddick would say, before paranoid producers with no regard for the true character whittled him down to kid-friendly form, "fuck these skittish mother-fuckers.  I'm fuckin' outta here."  No one could get the best of Riddick, until the MPAA got a hold of him...

Fuckers.

On a scale of 1-10?

7

What does this rating mean?  Everyone rates things differently.  Your "5" could be my "7," or vice-versa.  Find out what MY rating means by clicking here. 

Agree? Disagree? Feeling bored and wanna write a letter that you'll probably never get a response to?  Email me at alex@juicycerebellum.com

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