Riddick





Directed By: David Twohy

Starring: Vin Diesel, Jordi Mollá, Matt Nable, Katee Sackho, Dave Bautista, Bokeem Woodbine, Raoul Trujillo, and Karl Urban

The fall movie season is officially underway, which means I should think about taking a break for a few weeks from the box office.  I genuinely wouldn't miss much.  We've got The Family, another action movie penned by writer-director Luc Besson who I've yet to forgive for the abysmal Taken 2 last year.  We've got Battle of the Year, a Step Up imitation featuring Chris Brown.  We've even got Baggage Claim, a Paula Patton romantic comedy with cliché written all over it.  With that in mind, we're in for a bumpy ride over the next several weeks as the fall gets started.  First up, we've got Vin Diesel reprising his role as everyone's favorite Furyan in Riddick.

Riddick (Vin Diesel) is not too fond of his new role as Lord Marshall of the Necromongers, so he works with Vaako (Karl Urban) to figure out a plan to get back to Furya.  The Necromongers betray Riddick and leave him for dead on some unknown desert planet that's clearly "not Furya".  When he awakens, Riddick begins to do what he must to survive.  As he begins to navigate this deadly environment, Riddick must fend off hazardous conditions, vicious canines that are hungry for man flesh, and some venomous serpents that thrive in moisture.  When he sees a massive thunderstorm sweeping through the area, Riddick figures it's time to get off this planet as many more of these nasty serpents will come with the rain.

Riddick goes to a local station and uses its emergency beacon to broadcast a message that he's there and looking for a ship.  Soon thereafter, a crew lands on the planet.  Hungry for a substantial bounty on Riddick's head that doubles if they deliver him dead, Santana (Jordi Mollá) and his team set up camp at the station.  On the door at the station, they find a message from Riddick written in blood that reads "Leave one ship or die here".  Santana is not intimidated though as he has a fresh box for Riddick's head.  Soon after, another crew arrives.  Led by Boss Johns (Matt Nable), this crew is strictly interested in capturing Riddick alive.  While Santana and Johns squabble over who is running the show on the ground, Riddick begins to do what he does best.  The legendary Furyan is hell bent on getting off this rock before it rains, and he's willing to deal in blood to do so.

I'm sure there are fanboys out there who will love Riddick no matter what goes wrong in the film or what I have to say about it in this review for that matter.  Nonetheless, I'm going to express my justifiably negative opinion on this third installment in The Chronicles of Riddick series.  All that being said, there are a couple of major problems plaguing this Vin Diesel vehicle.  First and foremost, Riddick is entirely too cheesy, even for a Vin Diesel movie, and this really prevents me from getting into the story at times.  Second, the plot is colossally stupid and hinges entirely on one bizarre development.

As far as the cheesy nature of Riddick goes, Vin Diesel has established himself fully as the modern incarnation of 80s and 90s action stars like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger with his performance in this film.  He has many lines in the movie that are so cliché that I feel like anybody off the street could have written them.  Whether hitting on lesbian Dahl (Katee Sackhoff) or telling the whole movie and how each character is going to die before it comes to pass, Vin Diesel delivers his corny lines in a slow, deliberate way in the same manner that the older action stars did back in their heyday.  To top things off, he has a penchant for challenging former WWE superstars on screen.  With The Rock having appeared in Fast & Furious 6, Dave Bautista steps up this time as Santana's muscle Diaz.  These two get it on in one ridiculous fight.

Beyond the cheesiness, Riddick's storyline revolves around some unbelievable stupidity.  To protect their ships, Santana and Johns remove one power node from each vessel and lock them in a cabinet at the station under threat of detonation.  During the film, they open this cabinet to check that the nodes are still there and proceed to leave it open for Riddick to steal.  This is immense idiocy.  No bad guy in the world will open their safe to check that their prized possession is still there and then leave said safe open for the world to see.  That's just nuts!  What's crazier is that the entire second half of the film revolves around this inane development.  That's the mark of a truly poor plot from David Twohy and his fellow screenwriters.

Despite decent action and a fairly talented cast, Riddick fails to get the job done.  We had too many cheesy lines, too much stupidity, and too much time spent watching our favorite Furyan play with man's best friend (or some space version of it).  As expected, this sci-fi flick is a poor way to get the fall season started.  You're going to need some mojitos to get through this one.  Riddick gets a 0.09% rating.