Today's Mini-Review: Riddick

Riddick: ***/*****, or 6/10

Belated third installment of the so-called 'Riddick trilogy', which started with the moderate hit Pitch Black (2000) and continued with the overly grandiose The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), like this film (which in some territories carries the ominous subtitle Dead Man Stalking) written and directed by David Twohy. Vin Diesel returns as the muscular Richard B. Riddick, a member of the enigmatic, near extinct humanoid race called Furyans that can see in the dark, is adept at survival against all odds and generally proves hard to kill. Nevertheless, Riddick's new army of followers he conquered at the end of the previous film tries to do just that, leaving him for dead on a barren world populated by all manner of vicious beasts, where he himself still reigns supreme as the most dangerous predator of all (as usual). Nevertheless, driven by his primal instinct to return to his homeworld, Riddick decides to let his continued existence be known via an emergency beacon on a vacant outpost, after which two different teams of bounty hunters arrive to hunt him down. One of these is out solely for money, with the clear intent of 'ghosting' their prey as he's worth twice as much dead as he is alive, while the other is on a mission of a more personal nature, led by a father who believes he once lost his son at Riddick's cold hands. The latter team also comes with Katee Sackhoff, almost reprising her seminal role as Battlestar Galactica's Starbuck playing a tough woman who takes crap from no man and is fully able to defend herself from everybody who dares to try. Gratifying as it is to see Sackhoff can still balance smart, strong and sexy, her character proves fairly redundant as she has no singular action scenes of her own, save for a brief suspenseful shower sequence, while she's plagued by being the butt of sexually intimidating jokes for most of the film. After Riddick has outwitted and caused the deaths of half of the men out for his head, as well as having made off with vital starship components which prevent the teams from leaving, he successfully convinces them to seize hostilities for a while as a huge storm front is sweeping over their heads and brings forth great scores of hungry carnivores that want a piece of all of them. Soon, it seems as though even Riddick will not make it out alive this time, but we as an audience know better of course.

For those who watched the trailer and wondered how the heck Riddick went from being a virtual emperor of the galaxy at the end of Chronicles of to a lone survivor on a desolate world at the start of Riddick, a narrative connection between the events of this film and its predecessor is all too briefly incorporated, as we are treated to seeing Karl Urban's Lord Vaako again for less than 60 seconds of screen time (a waste of a terrific actor!), despite the suggestion that the information he relays is crucial in some way: it would appear Twohy still has some sort of big pay-off in mind to close off what he started in the second film, but appearently he either didn't have the inspiration or the budget to treat that specific subject in this film, necessitating him to return to the tone and substance of the original. It all proves overly familiar territory, and often feels very much like an uninspired retread of Pitch Black, which also witnessed Riddick making an unlikely alliance with his enemies in order to escape the jaws and clutches of hordes of creepy creatures out for human blood on an inhospitable planet. Problem is, though Riddick ends up a fairly entertaining popcorn flick (especially for those who are new to the franchise), Pitch Black did it all better. It had more original visual design, less obvious digital monsters and made the character of Riddick feel more menacing and alien, while at this point we know exactly what to expect from his persona: a limited vocabulary, general growling and the usual bloodshed of (mostly unlikeable) characters standing in his way. Riddick sadly remains a one-note character played by an equally one-note actor. Now that Twohy has displayed there's just little more he can do with the Riddick character and the latter's coolness factor has decidedly worn off, this may be a good time to put an end to this franchise that so clearly was never meant to be a franchise, Twohy's hints at a fourth film not withstanding.