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Friday, 8 November 2013

Riddick (2013)


Our friend Riddick is stuck on an arid, inhospitable planet again the silly fool. Stuck fending for his life against hostile wildlife and some rough mercenaries. Again. But Riddick, being the best and alien (a species called ‘Furyan’), haunts them and hunts them; but there is a far greater threat out there waiting for the darkness to fall. Yes the third Riddick film peddles almost exactly the same material as Pitch Black. Of course it’s David Twohy who writes and directs again although this time he and Vin Diesel are without the financial backing of Universal – they shelved the original plan for a Riddick trilogy after the tepid reviews for the second The Chronicles Of Riddick.

The first act of Riddick is narrated by the eponymous anti-hero in film noir stylee; he recounts his downfall as Lord Marshal (after Chronicles) and how he has come to be marooned with his terrible festering wounds. The second is concerned with the bounty hunters and their attempts at capturing Riddick. Truly the screenplay is awful, riddled with cringe inducing dialogue drivel – as scripts often are when trying to introduce some bad-guy familiar ‘banter’. The third act sees the incoming darkness and the monsters that follow – how they let a chained Riddick loose to help them.


So basically it is Pitch Black except not as good – the original had claustrophobia, an unknown threat and diverse characters. This has none of these qualities. The eyes are still menacingly cool though.

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