Chronicles of Riddick, The : Movie Review


Chronicles of Riddick, The (2004) - movie posterPitch Black was the sleeper hit of summer 2000 but I imagine that the follow up The Chronicles of Riddick will most likely prove to be the film that most viewers sleep through in 2004.

With a bounty on his head Riddick has been lying low. But when a group of mercenaries find him he steals their ship and heads for Helion Prime, to uncover who put out the contract on his life. There he meets an Elemental called Aereon (Judi Dench) and discovers that a Borg-like race are rampaging their way through the galaxy killing or converting all who stand in their way.

Naturally the only race that ever stood up to these Necromonger intergalactic bullies were the Furions. And who would conveniently be one of the only surviving Furions? Yes… our very own (or it appears not our very own) Richard B. Riddick. No mention of that in the first film you might recall?

So it’s all fairly silly but when Diesel finally gets going there are some nicely choreographed fight scenes. Still there’s nothing new here and for the majority of the time the camerawork is, as per usual, so jerky that most of it is incomprehensible anyway.

Former model Alexa Davalos makes an appearance as Kyra (Jack from Pitch Black) and her performance is one of the better ones as the rest of the cast appear to be in Star Trek baddie mode.

I like nothing more than a good moody sci-fi; Earth-in-danger only-one-man-can-save-us scenario. And that man really could be Vin Diesel; he’s imposing, a natural action hero and even his delivery of one-liners is good, but the film itself is drivel. The plot is convoluted, the characterisation is dreadful and even the CGI is pretty poor.

I feel that we can only hope that this is another burgeoning franchise that gets Lost in Space.

2 stars out of 5

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Author : Kevin Stanley