Year:
2004
Studio:
Universal Pictures
Feature:
3/5
Pitch Black was a
pretty good science fiction horror/thriller movie. Relatively low
budget but effective use of what special effects they did put in, it
did ok at the US box office. More importantly, it marked Vin Diesel's
first "bad attitude" role that he's pretty much had since then. Chronicles of Riddick is the sequel
to Pitch Black. But much like
Aliens is a
totally different thematic movie than Alien,
Chronicles of Riddick
forgoes the thriller genre and is an action movie all the way.
It's five years after the end of Pitch
Black. Riddick (Vin Diesel) has been hiding out in a remote
planet when bounty hunters catch up to him. After dispatching them
(relatively non-lethally, in fact this movie seemed rather non-gory
until I realized it was PG-13, not rated R like I for some reason
assumed) he goes to find the only person who knew where he was, Imam
(Keith David reprising his role).
But Imam had a good reason to want Riddick. The Necromongers, a race of
religious zealots led by their Lord Marshal (Colm Feore), have been
sweeping through the civilized worlds, gobbling up worlds leaving
lifelessness behind. Imam's world, Helios Prime is next and he thinks
that Riddick can stop the Necromongers.
Now, why could one man do this? Apparently, the Elemental Aereon (Judi
Dench) has surmised that Riddick is the last of the Furyans, a race of
warriors wiped out early on by the Necromongers. Apparently, Lord
Marshal knows a prophecy claiming that he will die at the hands of a
Furyan, so he is quiet paranoid of them.
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All well and
good, but Riddick is not the kind of person who gets involved. Even
when the Necromongers invade Helios Prime, Riddick only involves
himself in keeping Imam and his family alive. Once his business there
is done, he goes after Jack (the girl and third survivor from the first
movie), who got herself imprisoned on the prison planet Crematoria.
Of course Riddick did tick off the Lord Marshal so there is a
Necromonger team after him, led by Lord Vaako (Karl Urban, who of
course I should have recognized but just kept thinking "that guy looks
so familiar" throughout the movie). In Crematoria Riddick the grown up
Jack, who changed her name to Kyra (Alexa Davalos, not the same actress
as the first movie because she's too young) and who has become
almost as big a badass fighter as Riddick.
Lots of action sequences and fighting leading up to the climatic
confrontation between Lord Marshal and Riddick. The part I like about
this is that Riddick is never on the good guys side. Everything is done
because he has to pay back for wrongs done to him or his friends. It's
a classic anti-hero and in the end it's a fight not between good and
evil, but between evil and badass.
I thought it was a fairly good movie. Some of the science is kind off
but at least the movie doesn't contradict itself. The plot follows
logically, Riddick being moved by his own concepts of honor and
justice. Special effects are also well done, especially the Necromonger
ships which have the proper feeling of "they're huge!" to them.
There are several thematic similarities between Riddick and Van
Helsing. I think Van Helsing
does the whole atmosphere and attitude better than Chronicles of Riddick. But I still
think that this is an entertaining action movie.
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