Review of The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) by Carl P — 29 Feb 2012

From beginning to end I found this to be a thoroughly enjoyable sci-fi drama in every respect. The movie offers an excellent plot as Riddick becomes another anti-hero hero reminiscent of his role in Pitch Black, and worthy of his role in Chronicles in his character casting and performance ability.

The acting performance by all concerned, even the relatively new actors as well as older actors, was fantastic. IMHO, what David Twohy could have done was to rely less on the slightly over abundant and over reliance on very expensive graphics, and instead relied more on developing the background material to this sequel which was covered in some of the scenes, but were cut out of the final version.

By gutting the movie of some of its critical components, I think the movie fizzled out for most 'critics' because they weren't able to follow the content logically. Another reason for the movie probably being panned by the 'critics' was the fact that the US had invaded Iraq the year earlier and memories were still fresh in people's minds of that horror which also included aerial bombardment of cities, just like in the movie.

I believe that historical reality tended to shut out the younger audience to some degree by coloring their perspective on the entire movie adversely. The DVD version of this movie is much better. I would definitely like to see a follow up to 'Chronicles of Riddick' as a third installment of the series.

I have the DVD, enjoy it, and I definitely think it's comparable to 'Blade Runner' as a sci-fi drama cult classic in its own right.