Movie Review: The Chronicles of Riddick

Vin Diesel is a big Dungeons and Dragons fan. Finally, he gets to play D&D-style on a huge scale in a big budget sci-fi/fantasy epic that re-introduces him as the radical anti-hero/prisoner Riddick.

In The Chronicles of Riddick, the title character (Vin Diesel) who looks like a hairy caveman, is being chased by mercenaries (mercs) through the snowy wasteland of planet U.V. 6. There is a 1.5 million dollar bounty on his head. Riddick gets rid of most of the mercs in some clever and fast action and learns, from the surviving merc Toombs, (Nick Chinlund) that Imam, (Keith David) a holy man he saved back in the Pitch Black movie that introduced the Riddick character, has put out the bounty. Riddick is pissed! He steals Toombs' ship and goes after the ungrateful Imam on his homeworld Helion.

Imam explains to Riddick that the bounty was just a ruse to get the beefy hero to come to the planet and join him and all the innocent inhabitants in a war against the planet-destroying Necromongers, an evil army of wandering destructors wiping out whole civilizations by wrecking their worlds and converting the survivors to their strange "faith." If the survivors resist, their souls are pulled from their bodies and they die. Wow, our way or the highway!

Aereon (Judi Dench, an elemental), informs Riddick that he is a Furyan. Possibly the last of his kind and that it was foretold that the last Furyan would kill the Lord Marshall (Colm Feore), the half-dead Necro supreme leader (don't ask). The leader is already threatened by a top commander Vaaca (Karl Urban) and his Lady Macbeth-style hot wifie (Thandie Newton) who want to take over his "throne". Once a few mercs catch up with him, Riddick has to bond with Jack, aka Kyra (Alexa Davalos) whom he abandoned at age 12 (another left-behind in the Pitch Black movie) only she wants to kill him since she's been in prison for 5 years.. now she's hot and living on a really hot planet where it's something like 500 degrees on the sunny side! So can Riddick, the anti-hero usually interested only in self-preservation, save Kyra and the galaxy?

If that story confused you, join the club. This huge film's story is hard to track but man does it look great!!! The production design and costumes are awesome. I can see some of these turning up at Sci-Fi convention competitions. Vin is his usual buffed-up, pissed off self but he does get to show a softer more "human" side here. The ensemble of actors is excellent. Dame Judi Dench took the part to please her Vin and sci-fi loving young relatives but she's into it completely as a sooth-saying elemental who fades in and out with the wind. Thandie Newton is super convincing as a conniving, power-mad wife in ultra hot clothes. Alexa Davalos is beautiful and winning as the feisty, ticked off young woman that Riddick abandoned back on that Pitch Black planet years ago. Karl Urban from LOTR and the Xena TV show (he was Cupid) is super brooding but hot as well.

The real "star" of this complicated universe is the special effects. Planets are believable even if some of the spaceship design isn't. The look of the film..sort of Greek-God-like, with more curly-cues when it comes to the feared Necromongers, is regal and eye-popping. Vin's action is lots of fun but, as usual he's not gonna win any acting Oscars. If you are into video games come to life on the big screen you'll probably love this. Vin even put out a video game to fill in the blank 5 years between Pitch Black and the beginning of "Chronicles". If you liked Dune-like brooding races like Trek's The Borg, you'll probably be okay with the dense story.. All in all, if you don't try to figure out every detail of the convoluted storyline, you'll have fun at this eye-popping actioner.

For awesome design and effects and Vin in action 3.5 out of 5 stars

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.