The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)

Vin Diesel as "Riddick"
Judi Dench as "Aereon"
Colm Feore as "Lord Marshal"
Karl Urban as "Vaako"
Thandie Newton as "Dame Vaako"
Alexa Davalos as "Kira"
Keith David as "Imam"

Written and directed by David Twohy

For a while, I decided to leave this movie review thing to the professionals. If you've been keeping track, I haven't written a new review since February, ever since I first watched Returner. But consider me inspired today. You see, not every movie can be so sublimely ridiculous that it defies all logic, so earnest in its lack of sense that it leaves me on the edge of shock and laughter, begging for more.

It isn't every day that you find The Chronicles of Riddick.

For those not in the know, The Chronicles of Riddick is the sequel to Pitch Black, David Twohy's cult hit about a crew of space travelers fighting nocturnal monsters, or most notably, the movie that made Vin Diesel a star (although The Fast and the Furious made him a household name). After leaving two big franchises and starring in A Man Apart, Vin could definitely use a hit. Judging by box office returns so far, this may be it, and I really hope it is. After all of the mediocre flicks taking up precious theatre space, it's refreshing to see a movie so ambitious, yet severely lacking in coherence.

So it's five years after Pitch Black, and a holy war of sorts has broken out. The evil Necromongers swarm the galaxy, subjugating worlds and converting the inhabitants to their "faith." The Necromonger religion is like a cross between the Galactic Empire and Heaven's Gate, with the despotic Lord Marshal promising his followers an afterlife called the Underverse once they die.

The Lord Marshal is now and forever one of my favorite villains ever captured on film. First off, he has a helmet with multiple faces that looks like something a Roman smith would create while on PCP and hallucinating like a mofo. It actually makes his head appear to be vastly larger than the rest of his body, and makes him look like a villain from a lost season of Power Rangers. I guess he can't have it either way, because he looks utterly underwhelming without the helmet. Without a doubt, Colm Feore is the least imposing evil overlord since the mullet-wearing Memnon in The Scorpion King.

Across the galaxy, Riddick has a bounty on his head, and every hotshot tracker in the galaxy is on his tail. Narrowly avoiding a crew of mercenaries on an ice planet, Riddick learns that Imam, one of his fellow survivors from Pitch Black, disclosed his location. Confronting Imam, he also meets Aereon, an emissary from the race of Elementals. However, she's better known as our primary source of exposition. In fact, I don't even think Twohy knew what to do with her. As Aereon, Judi Dench basically appears in a few scenes and sleepwalks through an unnecessary role.

Anyway, according to Aereon and Imam, Riddick may be the key to discovering any remaining members of his kind, the Furians, a race of fearsome warriors who could turn the tide against the Necromongers. Riddick, however, would rather get back to surviving on his own, the universe be damned. That is, until Imam tells him that their other fellow survivor, Jack, went looking for him and ended up in prison. (I should let you know that "Jack" is a girl who was disguised as a boy in Pitch Black.) Riddick, being the selfish ex-con he is, would rather find Jack than try to save the universe. Fear not, he gets mixed up in this holy war anyway, runs afoul of the Lord Marshal, gets captured and is taken to the same prison that houses Jack.

The prison planet of Crematoria is where the film starts to take off. It's easy to see that there was a glimmer of a good idea in this movie, to explore the dark, seamy underbelly of Riddick's universe. In fact, this sequence underlines why we're supposed to get behind Riddick: because while he's pretty bad, everyone else is much worse. Had this been an intergalactic crime saga or prison break movie, it may have been a lot more interesting.

But it isn't a gritty crime thriller, and much of the movie's running time is devoted to the Necromongers and their plans for conquest. In the midst of this, Dame Vaako (Thandie Newton), wife to Commander Vaako (Karl Urban, sporting a jet black mohawk that doubles as a mullet), plots to install her husband in the seat of power. Of everyone in this movie who wasn't Vin Diesel, Thandie Newton seemed to be enjoying it the most, scheming and vamping it up as the sinister noblewoman. Urban, on the other hand, does little more than brood throughout the entire picture. It's a shame, because I enjoyed what little time he had as Eomer in Lord of the Rings. He had conviction and presence as the noble horseman, but here he has little to do aside from resembling an extra in a Judas Priest video.

Of course, there is the obligatory jailbreak sequence, the tension of which is undercut by the deaths of most of the guards just before the break. There is also an extended battle sequence between Riddick's crew of misfits and the Necromongers. It's expected as well that Riddick find some reason to return to the Necromongers' mothership to challenge the Lord Marshal himself. Predicting how the movie ends isn't very difficult, although the final shot nearly left me in hysterics.

I've ticked off a lot of bad points about this movie, but truth be told, I haven't had so much fun at the movies in a long time. Obviously, Twohy and Diesel must have thought they were making the best sci-fi epic since the original Star Wars, because their enthusiasm can be felt throughout this movie. The action scenes, while having much in common with video games in terms of pacing and editing, are lively and visually breathtaking. Say what you will about Vin Diesel as an actor, but when he's in action, he makes a convincing killer. The same can almost be said for Alexa Davalos as Jack, or "Kira" as she prefers to be known. While she appears much more vulnerable than the hardened Riddick, she still commits herself well to the running, fighting and shooting.

No doubt, there will be a group of fans who will embrace Riddick and his adventures. They'll see the movie, then they'll buy the special edition Pitch Black DVD, followed by the animated prequel and the video game (both of which are currently available, no lie). I hope they're out there in force, because I would like to see how the rest of this planned trilogy progresses. It's refreshing to see a bad movie with such vigor and ambition. The Chronicles of Riddick may be an incredibly formulaic action-adventure without a brain, but it is far from complacent, and that makes all the difference.

(6.19.04)