Riddick

If I remember correctly, the movie Pitch Black featured a rough hero in a rough environment with a rough and well-fabricated story. Those were the reasons I had fun. The second instalment featured a number of digital effects which overshadowed the story, and I did not like it at all. As a result, I was really curious about the third instalment. Even though I did not like the name they gave it, or rather did not give it. At first glance it appears as some kind of a restart of the franchise, which is quite popular nowadays. However, that is not the case. On the other hand, it is also not something I would enjoy revisiting. This instalment again features a rough hero in a rough environment, which is a basis for success. However, the story is quite simple along the lines of “keep moving, no turning back, save yourself” and there is nothing more significant in that. Vin Diesel is completely emotionless and all the emotions have to be aroused by the digital monsters, whom he either befriends or not. I’m sorry to be rating this with three stars, but I don’t feel that this instalment deserves more. (27/09/2014)

Basically a franchise reboot. It has almost everything in common with the first one: a tight group of people, a survival style - meaning no extravagant plot, no mythology, we don't learn anything additional. The script relies only on how diverse the characters are and how strong the motivation of each of them is to survive, you won't find much else, maybe a digital dog and a few well-made creatures. The chemistry between the characters works quite well and there are also a few decent lines and funny situations in the end. It's not completely stupid or bad, but it will be disappointing for those expecting a continuation of the second film. This is solely about Riddick being such an interesting film character that will make squeeze some money for a movie ticket. (08/09/2013)

The Chronicles of Riddick did not receive the desired response from the audience after the surprising success of Pitch Black, so David Twohy decided to humbly return to what once worked, but with a bigger budget and ambitions. Thus, Riddick repeats the pattern of Pitch Black with all its pros and cons. I'm just not sure if the logical lapses and the B-movie vibe oozing out of every shot will be appreciated by the fans of the first installment. After all, they have aged and the competition is fierce. I didn't enjoy the first film, so I didn't find a connection even to the final part of the trilogy. However, the characters of the two rival mercenary gangs were quite interesting, and if it weren't for the genre clichés of routine action sci-fi films that seemed so ridiculous to me, I would give it three stars despite its numerous flaws. Overall impression: 40%. (17/03/2019)

Somehow, with Christmas this year, anything that swept across my monitor and had at least half a hair on it must have rightly felt a bit nervous. After the two installments of the blockbuster video game Riddick (Escape from Butcher Bay and Assault on Dark Athena), there was still the third installment of the movie trilogy left, and while it didn't live up to the aforementioned games, still this organic mecca of all survivalists, so tough it only shags lesbians with a bed full of wet concubines on call 24-7, still has something to offer. The advantage of the Riddick universe, after all, is that there's simply no alternative to it, and most people are kind of stuck with it. That's why Twohy can treat the property pretty much any way he wants, build a film on a fairly atypical plot that actually mixes 2 films together, stuff it with tons of CGI ranging across the quality spectrum, and still pretend like that isn't all, folks. And of course I don't mind at all, because you can see that the author has a load of new ideas up his sleeve, his not lacking in balls, and the protagonist still has a working vocal. And to top it off, he completely pointlessly gets the horny nerds off to Katee Sackoff – who by the way, with that last name, I guess there's not much else for a man to do but play militant lesbians. (26/12/2013)

After the majority reaction, Twohy sensed that a new space opera wasn’t going to grow on Riddick's shoulders and he returned meekly to the waters of the pitch-black prologue, forgetting what made it good thirteen years ago (a strong moment of surprise from the new protagonist caught not only the audience by surprise, but apparently Furyan's creators behind the camera as well); the second third, playing on the "Riddick the Predator" note, is a discharge, but the first is a lengthy prologue with no substance because we know almost everything anyway, and the final act is a pathetic avalanche that definitively buries Riddick as the legend we craved and never really got. (03/10/2014)