The Chronicles of Riddick

Review by Clint Morris

In 2000, a relatively-unknown potato-sack full of cashews named Vin Diesel headlined a relatively low-budget space thriller called Pitch Black.

Stylish, without being over-the-top, and suspenseful, without resorting to being a Hollywood cop-out, it centred on a prisoner named Riddick [Diesel] who helps save the crew of a crashed space-craft from alien monsters that come out at night.

The Chronicles of Riddick gives us a glimpse into the life of renegade Riddick post-night monsters.

Flushed out of a barren planet in the middle of nowhere, Riddick heads in search of Imam (Keith David, reprising his role from the first film), who the muscle-bound thug believes has betrayed him. He's wrong; it's actually an alien named Aereon [Judi Dench] that's sent for Riddick.

She believes Riddick alone can stop the inexorable march of the wicked Necromongers - and so that's why they've ousted him from his hushed existence.

Seems Riddick is a member of a race called the Furyan's, whom the Necromongers' bad-ass Lord Marshal [Colm Feore] methodically knocked off in the hopes of stopping the portend predicting that he'll die by a Furyan hand.

But before he can scuffle with his challenger, Riddick must rescue the now grown-up Jack [Alexa Davalos] - the young girl, who everyone thought was a boy, from the first film - who is currently trapped in a hellish maximum-security prison.

We all know Vin Diesel hates sequels right? So what on earth propelled him to do the substandard Pitch Black follow-up Chronicles of Riddick?

Okay, sure, it looks pretty and sure, Diesel's at his fast-quipping, fast-fighting, fast-bolting best, but there's really nothing more here than there was in Tim Burton's equally well choreographed but similarly middling Planet of the Apes remake.

For a start, the story is about as interesting as watching someone apple-pick for a day. It's so bloated; you actually begin to wonder whether it is from the same man [David Twohy] who gave us the tight, compelling, genuinely suspenseful Pitch Black.

The two flicks seem to come from remotely different planets. And without those dazzling special-effects and over-the-top sets, it'd be a real effort to stay awake right through this baby.

Whilst The Chronicles of Riddick has it's moments, and if you like special effects you'll be kept busy looking at the razzle dazzle on screen, one can't help but think Diesel should've stuck to his "no sequel" guns for quite a while longer.

Looks like someone's drifted off the road to integrity and picked up a scent of money.

2.5 out of 5

Chronicles of Riddick
Australian release: Thursday July 29th
Cast: Vin Diesel, Judi Dench, Karl Urban, Colm Feore, Thandie Newton, Alexa Davalos, Linus Roache.
Director: David Twohy.
Website: Click here.

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