the chronicles of riddick

Twenty years after its theatrical release, The Chronicles of Riddick still isn’t a particularly great movie, but it’s become a lot easier to appreciate its bonkers wavelength. A deranged blend of Frank Herbert, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and George Lucas-inspired world-building and myth-making (not unlike what Zack Snyder recently attempted with Rebel Moon), the film in no way feels like a logical successor to Pitch Black… the superb, low-budget sci-fi/horror hybrid that introduced intergalactic lawbreaker Richard B. Riddick and helped catapult Vin Diesel to superstardom. Director David Twohy is one of the medium’s better B-movie storytellers (his last non-Riddick offering was the twisty, under-appreciated 2009 thriller A Perfect Getaway), but Diesel’s meteoric rise as a new breed, 21st-century action star (he quickly scored a pair of major hits in The Fast & the Furious and xXx) afforded him the rare opportunity to work on a 100-million canvas. Say what you will about the spectacularly dorky, S&M-tinged space opera that ensued, but you can’t deny that Twohy takes one hell of an unapologetic swing.

The Necromongers are a fanatical, Borg-like religious sect, led by the Lord Marshal (Colm Feore), on a crusade to assimilate/obliterate all human life en route to an underworld Valhalla known as the Underverse (feel free to consult the official Wiki if you want to see how deliriously deep the rabbit hole goes). The holy man Imam (Keith David) helps flush Riddick out of hiding because the Air Elemental Aereon (Judi Dench, in one of the more jarringly random paycheck jobs you’ll ever encounter) believes he’s actually one of the last descendants of a Spartan-like warrior race known as the Furyans - the only people with the intestinal fortitude to go toe-to-toe with the Necromongers (it also leads to all sorts of amusing retconning - such as the vague implication that Riddick’s reflective eyes are actually the result of his Furyan genetics, rather than surgical penal butchery). But for all of this dopey, sprawling mythology, the film itself proves oddly slight (perhaps because it was conceived as the opening salvo in a trilogy that never actually materialized). Twohy never quite figures out how to rewire Riddick from unrepentant outlaw into bona fide franchise hero; he settles on using the character of Jack - the feisty teenage girl-pretending-to-be-a-boy stowaway from Pitch Black - as a makeshift solution. Riddick, not interested in serving as the universe’s Necromonger-slaying savior, learns that she’s been incarcerated in a triple-max Slam and the movie’s entire second act morphs into a fairly basic prison break thriller. As narrative engines go, this one tends to choke on its own exhaust.

The prison, at least, is cool. Set on Crematoria, the facility is located nearly 30 kilometers underground due to the planet’s surface alternating between a scorching 700 degrees during the day and close to 300 degrees below zero at night. Jack, now played by Alexa Davalos, goes by Kira and fills out a tank top quite nicely, her formerly shaved scalp now spouting an impressive mane of Felicity-esque curls. It’s virtually impossible to reconcile the two versions of the character, which makes the whole conceit of Riddick’s rescue mission that much more of a chore to buy into. In Pitch Black, Riddick was a genuinely fascinating character - like an unorthodox integer introduced into a standard genre equation, scrambling the math. He functions much more blandly here, but, as a movie star, Diesel has always had a distinct strain of the peacock about him - he clearly revels in Twohy lensing him with a distended sense of mythologized grandeur. He still cuts an impressive figure on-screen - all bulging biceps and sweat-speckled chrome dome, his trademark goggles a killer accessory - and his gravely charisma remains undiminished... but unlike the curved Ulak blades he likes to wield, the once R-rated edge has been dulled. Riddick may be a reluctant hero, but he’s still been tasked with the crucial art of selling branded merchandise and soda pop to kids.   ​

As if The Chronicles of Riddick weren’t already sufficiently and suffocatingly self-serious, Twohy elects to get downright Shakespearean as well. Much of the side drama revolves around the Necromonger Commander Vaako (a painfully stiff Karl Urban, back when Hollywood was attempting to fashion him into a generic action star, having no idea he’s actually one hell of a deft actor) and his wife, played by Thandie Newton in full-blown Lady Macbeth mode. She aspires for him to become the new Lord Marshal and their rote scheming mostly just fills time; perhaps Vaako and Riddick would eventually become worthwhile adversaries, but frankly we’ll never know. One’s attention is better spent admiring the Wagnerian set design and elaborate costumes, which feel like H.R. Giger marrying Arthurian chain mail with BDSM club gear. The film does have genuine visual muscle. But its humorlessness renders it stiff-jointed. Anyone who’s seen the belated, stripped-down 2013 follow-up Riddick will undoubtedly snicker at how baldly Twohy attempts to extricate himself from this movie’s cliffhanger ending and hastily shift out of D&D fantasy and back into Pitch Black territory. The Chronicles of Riddick turned out to be a rather sorry and short-lived chronicle indeed - more of a pamphlet, really. But watching it today, one can at least savor that distinct tang of creative risk.