The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
Directed by David Twohy
After years of outrunning ruthless bounty hunters, escaped convict Riddick suddenly finds himself caught between opposing forces in a fight for the future of the human race. Now, waging incredible battles on fantastic and deadly worlds, this lone, reluctant hero will emerge as humanity's champion - and the last hope for a universe on the edge of annihilation.
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15 films that influenced The Chronicles of Riddick
What critics say influenced The Chronicles of Riddick
The picture is a survey of George Lucas' original Star Wars trilogy, of all four Alien films, of dashes of Jeunet and Caro's French phantasms, and of David Lynch's Dune, with--and I mean this in a good way--just a smidge of Flash Gordon factored in: a parade of black leather-clad grotesqueries inhabit a lushly imagined future (breaking records for lumber usage in its Vancouver construction) in a film that attempts to tell old stories in a new way and, for the most part, succeeds with an agreeable level of whiz-bang.
The Chronicles of Riddick carries a backbone of hysterical pomposity unseen since David Lynch's Dune -- huge and gaudy, dripping with self-importance that pleads to be deflated.
Writer-director David Twohy, working on a vast canvas, maps out the lore and dimensions of Riddick's universe, and as with David Lynch's trippy "Dune," the result is intricately detailed yet frustratingly sketchy.
It's the slavish devotion to deep immersion (Linus Roach as a reluctant "Purifier" almost steals the show in a small speech recalling Rutger Hauer's at the end of Blade Runner) draped over a sometimes-familiar frame that makes of The Chronicles of Riddick a superlative entertainment.
“The Chronicles of Riddick” has the feel, if not the look, of an old-fashioned sci-fi flick as it reprises ideas and actions from a plethora of earlier films, such as “Predator,” “Star Wars,” “Dark City,” “Ghostbusters,” “Die Hard,” “The Road Warrior,” “Flash Gordon” (without the bright colors) and “Excalibur.”
This utterly superfluous sequel is plotted with pretentious pseudo-religious conflict that makes "The Matrix" sequels look profound and exists in artificial worlds that call attention to the spaces which exist outside of their matte frames.
In fact, "The Chronicles of Riddick" is being positioned as the first in what is hoped will be a series that fuses aspects of "Star Wars" and "The Matrix."
Apparently it is possible to make interesting and exciting sci-fi fight sequences without resorting to ripping off The Matrix.
A dash of The Matrix‘s bullet-dodging antics, a dollop of Stargate‘s Egyptian fetish, a sprinkle of Dune‘s hippy-dippy spiritual lore, and voilà—the latest dispiriting summer splurge of incoherent action and pretentious mythologizing.
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How they all manage to find each other so easily on empty desert highways is a mystery unexplained, but director David Caffrey (“Divorcing Jack”) keeps the energy level high, and has populated the supporting roles with the most comical-looking character types ever assembled outside of a David Lynch film.
Combining elements of Hamlet, Dune, Star Wars, Star Trek and Vin Diesel running in slow-motion; The Chronicles of Riddick essentially becomes William Shakespeare's first video game.
The names of the characters and planets (Crematoria, Vaaco) are charmingly cheesy, but what impresses are the ideas that fuel the special effects: a "carbonite" chamber where a quintet of empaths dissect Riddick's memory; a planet that has a daytime temperature of over seven-hundred degrees; an image of an ephemeral creature chained by an organic-ugly chain; and, best yet, a mutation of flesh that functions as a mad permutation of a bloodhound, Cory McAbee's Bodysuit character from The American Astronaut , and a fishbowl.
The new 2004 DVD release is now called The Chronicles of Riddick: Pitch Black, though it would do well to distance itself from its ridiculous sequel.
Just as Universal reissued its classic horror flicks on DVD to promote the theatrical release of Van Helsing, so too has it elected to produce a new special edition DVD of Pitch Black as a precursor to the film's upcoming sequel, The Chronicles of Riddick.
Though hardly more than a mediocre Aliens knockoff, director David Twohy’s 2000 sci-fi horror flick, Pitch Black , managed to develop something of a cult following when it was released on video.
Director David Twohy 's long-awaited sequel to the 2000 cult horror pic Pitch Black is finally here, and fans won't be disappointed by this big-budget sci-fi opera.
The basic plot is clear enough: Riddick, laying low after Pitch Black, is reluctantly called into world-saving duty after he learns there�s a bounty on his head.
I recently enjoyed the new DVD re-release of the original film Pitch Black (1999).
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Writer/director David Twohy ("Below," "Pitch Black") should have quit while he was ahead.
Richard B. Riddick, the outlaw, comes to us from "Pitch Black", a previous collaboration between Vin Diesel and writer-director David Twohy ("Below").
Riddick is just a slapdash conglomeration of set pieces stitched together, and they're all apparently borrowed or inspired by pulpy old science fiction and tweaked just enough to make you think writer (and director, damn him) David Twohy ( Below ) is making fun of us fans, like he's trying to see how ridiculous he can be and still convince us he's serious.
Twohy has made his name as a director with solid low-to-medium budget sci-fi/horror fare like “The Arrival” and “Below”; here, working with his first mega-budget, he seems adrift.
This may sound like an enormous amount of plot (and I haven't even mentioned Thandie Newton and her Lady Macbeth-like machinations to get her boyfriend named leader of the Necromongers) and the usually nimble Twohy (who also directed the effective B movies "The Arrival" and "Below") quickly gets bogged down with all the different characters and worlds that introduces; none of them really stand out and it is almost impossible to tell who are the really bad guys and who are the sorta-bad-but-not that-bad guys.
This ever-sweeping syndrome has even spread to purveyors of solid genre entertainment such as David Twohy, the writer and director of this pseudo sci-fi epic and much better films in the past such as Below and The Arrival .
This is perhaps the most dense science fiction psychobabble this side of L. Ron Hubbard’s Battlefield Earth saga, which I myself have read and seen the awful resulting film with John Travolta.