Review of Riddick (2013) by Tuco_The_Ugly — 14 Oct 2013

With the dramatic and somewhat confusing transformation into a messy and ridiculous Space-Epic with The Chronicles of Riddick following the release of the of the downscale low budget(by comparison) Pitch Black the Riddick franchise has been an odd one at best leaving many feeling confused. It would seem that, following the relatively positive reception of the first movie, the creators got the idea that the audience was hooked solely on the exploits of the character Riddick as opposed to the frightening scenarios and interesting setting that the movie provided and so the idea that they could spawn a massive space epic centered around that one character spawned and it was an idea that didn't do them any favors. The sequel flopped and Vin Diesel, who played the brutal yet now somewhat uninteresting hero, moved on to other projects.

Riddick sees the return of director David Twohy and Diesel himself in an attempt to take the series back to its more humble roots with a much lower budget to bring us the more downscale set pieces and a smaller cast, something which carries over from Pitch Black, as though this will repair the mistakes made by Chronicles on its own. Sadly it doesn't, while the movie is a significant improvement over one of its predecessors it proves to be the more mediocre one of the three with acting that is somewhat questionable at times and a script that leaves something to be desired with an array of bland lines that lack impact and feel flat(If you've seen the trailers you've already heard Jordi Miller's "I've come to collect your head in a box!" and already sort of know what I'm on about) and characters that are stereotyped and are left unexplored.

The movie does show some promise and times however and provide some entertainment with the first act focusing on Riddick surviving in the wilds of this new planet after being left for dead by the Necromongers that were introduced in the first movie. Riddick fashions spears, finds shelter and adopts a space-wolf in scenes that are entertaining and visually interesting, with some very attractive settings and creature designs. Then comes the second act in which Riddick faces off against two seperate groups of mercenaries. This act is much less interesting with generic and cheap looking action scenes that even the mildly humorous bounty hunter dialogue can't save. In the third and final act the film unashamedly tries to retread the steps of the original by introducing fearsome creatures that only come out when it's raining, a concept which seems to have been directly copied from the original Pitch Black script with only slight changes made.

All of this is concluded in a finale that seems sudden and abrupt and incredibly anticlimactic. That's not to say that the movie was building itself up for an explosive climax however; in fact the movie fails to increase tension entirely with only a little of the unpredictability of the first movie to help it along in the form of a single plot twist and one or two unexpected deaths.

The movie, as said before, is significantly better than Chronicles but despite its best attempts doesn't quite manage to be as interesting or entertaining as the original and it's evident that the Riddick, the title character himself, has become rather dull and uninteresting which is a shame after the debut which painted him as a true unpredictable killer of an antihero.

The movie is entertaining however and while it might not be worth a cinema trip or a DVD purchase it's certainly worth a rental if only to see that the it is possible to revive a franchise after such a major flop.