RIDDICK
Starring: Vin Diesel, Jordi Molla, Matt Nable, Katee Sackhoff
Directed by: David Twohy
Reviewed by Brendan Dousi

[rating: 3/5]

In 2000 audiences were delighted when David Twohy introduced us to the character of Riddick, Vin Diesel’s gruff, ruthless, dusky-voiced on-the-run criminal who has to team up with a group of Bounty Hunters chasing his tail to survive the terrors of a hostile planet. In 2004 audiences were confused beyond belief when the simple original sci-fi premise gave way to a world full of hell-prisons, soul-eating uber-goths and a dematerialising Judi Dench. Almost 10 years later, will Twohy’s attempts at a third instalment of the Riddick franchise just further bewilder audiences or can he reinstill our faith in the badass-ness of Richard B. Riddick?

Riddick takes up where The Chronicles of Riddick left off, with Riddick as king of the Necromongers and longing for his home world of Furya. Feeling out of place in his new role, he decides to relinquish his role to go in search for his homeworld but is soon deserted and left for dead on an unknown, hostile planet. Broken and soft, Riddick now has to build himself up and learn to thrive in a world where almost everything aims to kill him. The most vile and dangerous of which are these weird yet terrifying water-dwelling velociraptor-scorpion poison monsters. They’re no problem, though, as long as you stay away from the water. That is until a giant storm starts to engulf the planet, making everything dwelling on it ripe for the velociraptor-scorpion poison monster pickings. Riddick decides he needs to cut his losses and hitch a ride from a group of bounty hunting mercenaries, which he summons to the planet. Only problem is, there’s of course tremendous bounty put out on him that doubles if his head is returned separated from his body. With the oncoming monster-storm and twelve bounty hunters after Riddick’s blood, this is where the fun really begins.

Riddick is a little slow at the get-go with a fairly clunky beginning. This is necessary, though, because the first 15 minutes of the film basically spends it’s time almost completely removing itself from Chronicles of Riddick and wiping the slate clean for the real balls-out Riddick action. It then moves onto Riddick stranded on the hostile planet, trying to survive and build himself back up into a bad ass. This is all well and good, but goes on for a little too long and mostly just plays out like an extreme episode of Bear Grylls. Once Riddick actually gets back into the swing of things, the film starts to pick up the pace, which is much needed after 30 minutes of dawdling around a bit. Giant horrifying monsters start the threaten the planet, Bounty Hunters hunt, Riddick hunts them back and then comes the inevitable team-up as they all realise they may be in over their heads.

Besides the slow beginning, reliance on a few clichés and some stunted dialogue choices, Riddick is actually a really entertaining and enjoyable action sci-fi. It’s nothing special or ground-breaking, but it delivers what it promises, a return to the Riddick we saw in Pitch Black as opposed to whatever the hell happened in Chronicles of Riddick. Vin Diesel is back in full form and this is definitely a step in the right direction for the franchise.