It has been 13 years since Pitch Black was released. In that time, Vin Diesel has careened from action star to, well, The Pacifier, and back again. After the miscalculation that was The Chronicles of Riddick, you would be forgiven for thinking that Diesel would have better things to do than return to this franchise. However this is a role tailor-made for the man and he seems to invest quite a bit into it. Therefore, after a rather long hiatus, Riddick is back on the big screen for what must be the last chance saloon for the series.
• Director: David Twohy
• Exhibition: 2D
• Rating: 15
• Run Time: 119 mins
When we first meet Riddick, he has been marooned on an unnamed planet. Rather unsurprisingly (to everyone but him) he has been betrayed by his followers, the Necromongers – the previous film made it quite clear that treachery was a cultural thing for them. After an acclimatisation period that would have killed lesser mortals, Riddick realises he needs to get off the planet before an encroaching storm hits. He isn’t aquaphobic or anything – he just doesn’t like what comes with the storm. When two groups of mercenaries land on the planet to collect the bounty on Riddick’s head, he sees his opportunity for escape.
The original movie was a low-budget charmer – a well-made sci-fi horror which proved that Diesel was leading man material. Thankfully, Riddick has more in common with Pitch Black than Chronicles. The biggest departure this time is the addition of far more humour – Jordi Molla’s mercenary leader Santana providing most of the laughs. Twohy never allows the quips and back-chat to impact the tension – instead the jokes allow us to get to know what would inevitably be cannon fodder characters in other movies. What you end up with then is likeable characters whose fates matter to you, so when the faeces hits the rotating air displacer, you are hooked.
Again, the star of the show is Diesel. His Riddick is as cold as ever, with his gravel-chewing voice perfect for the character. The opening third of the movie focuses almost solely on Riddick, allowing the audience to become re-acquainted with him. During this time, we see his survival instinct come to the fore, which not only makes for some exciting scenes when he is in the wild but also informs his choices later. Once the other characters show up, his interactions with them are brief, but good. The dialogue can be a little cheesy but not offensively so.
Other than a dog-like companion for Riddick, the rest of the non-human creatures in the film do everything they can to kill him. Like Pitch Black, there is a foe that only comes out at a specific time – downpours of rain replace darkness in this regard. However, the scorpion-like CGI monstrosities are introduced far too early and therefore, do not have the same sense of threat their predecessors had.
As a good portion of the movie is spent with an isolated Riddick, the mercenaries have to fight for your time and attention. While each of them is given a trait or moment that the audience can appreciate, I was disappointed that more was not done with Katie Sackhoff and Karl Urban. Being a fan of both, I know they can deliver if given the opportunity.
Riddick may not live up to the original but it certainly makes up for Chronicles. Diesel apparently risked financial ruin to bring this movie to the screen. I hope it pays off for him and they end up making more… if only to ensure he never has to make another Pacifier movie.
Badhaggis
Wow, wow, wow.
4/5?
I gave it a 3.5/10, and I felt that was almost being overly generous to it. The dialogue is some of the worst written and delivered that I’ve ever come across, Vin Diesel is wooden and it’s one of the least tense thriller films I’ve seen recently.
They did have a few half-decent actors around, but what they were saying was a mix of gibberish and nonsensical. The effects were meh (especially compared to Elysium which I saw before it), and there’s a truck-load of continuity errors.
Yeah, it’s like Pitch Black, because it just copies everything in it, without attempting to improve it at all.
Bleugh, don’t be fooled, this is not a good film.
Badhaggis
I don’t want to universally rag on the film, the first 5-10 minutes were pretty great, but once the Mercs got introduced to the equation, it just went downhill fast for me.
Perhaps it was because I got roped into to watch Elysium (for the second time) imminently before, but I just couldn’t take any of it seriously on any level (even as a silly pop-corn flick). Diesel may as well been a video game character with the lines he was coming out with, I’ve no idea who they got to write the script, even the actors (to me) looked kind of unsure about what they were actually doing.
Yeah, I’d still say it was better than Chronicles (a lot better), but I can’t say it’s as good as Pitch Black, even though the entire film is a homage/ripoff of it.
Oh, and the idea that lesbianism can be “cured” by Riddick doesn’t help it.