Review of Riddick (2013) by Per Gunnar J — 19 Jan 2014

Well, I did enjoy this movie. That has to be said. However, I was definitely expecting more out of it.

The scenery and quite a lot of the action was not bad at all. When Riddick was in his best bad-ass mode I really enjoyed the movie. Sadly whoever wrote the script goofed that bit up quite a lot. I was expecting Riddick to haunt and take out the mercs one by one in his usual bad-ass way until only a few remained. Sadly enough this didn't happen. It started out quite well with the animal traps but then it just deteriorated into a rather silly plot with the mercs, especially the first group, being more than stupid.

Speaking of mercs, what is this nonsense of "new breed" of mercs in the blurb for the movie? These are mercs are just normal Hollywood-style overly stupid humans. That was another thing that I was rather disappointed about.

The first half of this movie, where Riddick fought the natural flora and fauna and got his cool "pet", was definitely the best. After that the script turned more nonsensical and Riddick lost much of his bad-ass cool-factor. The last bit was nice from a special effects point of view but it was not the Riddick that I hoped for.

I would not say that this is a bad movie, I did enjoy it, but it is yet another opportunity for a great movie squandered by a poor Hollywood-style script. Of the three movies about Riddick I still consider The Chronicles of Riddick the best one.