The Chronicles of Riddick

Posted by Greg

November 11, 2007

Space Well Spent

***1/2 out of *****

Several years ago, little-known director David Twohy and his cast of relative unknowns emerged from the Australian desert with a nifty little sci-fi movie called Pitch Black. It was basically a retread of a passé theme (stranded humans try to outrun hungry aliens) but was done with enough panache to catch the attention of sci-fi fans everywhere, me included. It became a cult hit that gave us one of the most memorable good/bad guys around in Richard B. Riddick, a guy so over the top badass that he makes Sam Jackson look like Gandhi.

Fast forward five years to the release of The Chronicles of Riddick. Same director, same characters and a whole lot more money. Mix them all together and what do you get? A visually impressive, attention-grabbing, but puffed up sci-fi epic that leaves you with the feeling that, noble as his intentions were, Twohy bit off a bit more than he could chew.

Picking up several years after the events in Pitch Black, we find Riddick (Vin Diesel) living as a reclusive outlaw on a distant planet, wanting nothing but to be forgotten. But with a huge price on his head that very few bounty hunters could resist, he’s not left alone for long. Vowing to find out how the latest batch of ‘mercs’ knew exactly where to find him, he heads back to civilization to ask a couple of pointed questions of Imam (Keith David), one of only two other survivors from Pitch Black and the only man in the universe who knows Riddick’s whereabouts.

In a shining example of bad timing though, shortly after he arrives on Imam’s home planet, it’s invaded by the Necromongers, a space-borne armada of half-dead beings who used to be human. Led by Lord Marshall (Colm Feore), their only goal is to convert all beings in the galaxy to their faith, kill all who resist and find the ‘Underverse’ (which is never really explained). Riddick, finding himself again smack dab in the middle of a situation that’s going from bad to worse, decides to get out the only way he knows how - by killing everything between him and the exit.

It’s clear that lots of time and money has been spent in giving this first act a deep and believable environment — I could very nearly believe that I was looking at an actual extra-solar human settlement. The scenes of invasion that follow are where all the big money shots are though; they’re very well done, and about as sci-fi as sci-fi can get. Twohy frames this confrontation in an expansive way that effectively conveys the massive scale a planetary invasion would take, complete with rumbling bass and some spectacular shots, like one that tracks an immense spaceship from the fringes of the atmosphere right down to a massive impact at ground level. The ships, explosions, fights and aliens come fast and furious (ha!) which fans of hard sci-fi will love; others might feel a bit overwhelmed. Fortunately for them, after this dazzling scene the movie settles into a more traditional storytelling mode.

After this, and true to his history of bad luck, Riddick finds that it isn’t as easy as just killing a few people and taking off — it turns out that he’s the last surviving member of a race called the Furians, and an integral part of a prophecy that would see the end of the Necromongers. But before he (or they) can make any permanent changes in the situation, Riddick finds himself again pursued, captured and dumped in a maximum security ‘slam’, where he meets up with Kyra (Alexa Davalos) the other survivor from the events a few years prior. Escaping the wrath of Lord Marshall isn’t that easy though, and they soon find themselves separated - Kyra as a prisoner of the Necromongers and Riddick in hot pursuit. Will he save the girl, kill the bad guys and get his well-deserved vacation? The answer may not be as straightforward as you think.

For the most part, the actors in Riddick do a nice enough job to provide the movie a sense of weight that can sometimes be hard to find in big sci-fi. Keith David lends his imposing talent to the proceedings, but isn’t around long enough to become a character we get to know, which is a shame. Judi Dench, despite her acting credentials, seems oddly out of place here as Aereon, a mysterious Elemental being. With a fake looking white wig and a cool-but-creepy translucent effect, she’s mostly around to provide exposition. I’m not quite sure that Colm Feore was the right choice for Lord Marshall either; he’s a good actor but doesn’t convey the sense of menace that the leader of an undead army of planet killers should. He comes off more like a jealous SOB who surrounded himself with a first-rate army.

But Diesel is the star and both he and Twohy knows that his strength lies in his presence - say what you will about his acting prowess, but there’s no denying that it’s hard to tear your eyes away from the guy when he’s onscreen. However, the one mistake that keeps Riddick from reaching its full potential as an ass-kicking sci-fi flick is the fact that they made it PG-13 in order to snare a larger audience. The character of Riddick is so blatantly badass and enjoyably confrontational that it seems a cheat to build anything but a hard R flick around him.

Kudos should go out to the production design of Holger Gross, who does a great job of conveying the industrial, grimy life of multi-planet colonization and long distance spaceflight. The Necromonger theme looks like John Milton was daydreaming about mortuaries and decided to sketch a few designs. Sometimes a bit goofy but I guess suitably morbid for a culture that worships death.

And I must include a special shout-out to my favorite group of people, the Thai censors. Thanks so much for blurring a scene that included people kneeling in regard to the Necromonger belief, which would have scared me, and for bleeping out the word ‘Imam’ anytime it was uttered. Way to smooth over inter-religious relations, morons.

But as always, the difficulty with being a big-budget sequel to a cult hit is that the pressure is ratcheted up a few notches by people expecting the same sense of adventure and style that defined the first go. Problem is, greater studio input, bigger egos and less autonomy for the director can dilute a property - the skill lies in finding other ways to keep it fresh. Twohy, I think, had a good idea of what that can be and does his best to keep things on track, but somewhere along the way, The Chronicles of Riddick just became too top heavy to trump the movie from whence is came. Enjoyable and good for some dazzling CGI, but it falls just a bit short from becoming the epic that it so badly wants to be.

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