Riddick by David Twohy (review)

Before delving into the story of Riddick (2013), it is worth a brief look into the story behind the production of the film, as actor and producer Vin Diesel repeatedly displayed a degree of persistence rivalling the titular character in order to get the film made. Diesel, who has starred as the protagonist in each of the franchise’s three instalments as well as doing voice work for animated shorts and video games based on the character, started the sf franchise with Pitch Black (Twohy US 2000), despite Polygram Studios wanting Steven Seagal for the role. He then continued the role in the sequel, The Chronicles of Riddick (Twohy US 2004), choosing to turn down $20 million to reprise the role of Dominic Toretto for 2 Fast 2 Furious (Singleton US/Germany 2003). The Chronicles of Riddick, despite only paying Diesel $50,000 to star, had a budget north of $100 million, which the film barely recouped, dashing any plans for further sequels. However, Diesel believed in the franchise to such a degree that he agreed to his cameo in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (Lin US/Germany 2006) in exchange for his One Race production company being given the rights to the Riddick character. After a nine-year hiatus, Diesel brought Riddick to theatres in September of 2013, leveraging his home to help raise the $38 million budget as one of the movie’s producers.

Riddick brings the franchise back full circle to the horror-thriller nature of the original, Pitch Black, with Richard Riddick (Vin Diesel) fighting for survival on an inhospitable planet. This lower-budget, less grandiose film puts the franchise back in a comfort zone where it previously found success. Despite this return to the grittier setting that helped give the first film a cult following, there is still a significant element lacking in Riddick. There is no longer any mystery surrounding the anti-hero Riddick, a character who is well developed by this point in the series. This is especially true given the character’s treatment in The Chronicles of Riddick, a more traditional epic space opera where Riddick conquers a malevolent race of invading Necromongers and becomes their Lord Marshal, all while entertaining a love interest. Without that mystery, this movie is left to focus on three things: the interactions Riddick has with the various creatures on this new hostile planet; tying the three movies into a cohesive series; and, finally, the interactions Riddick has with the mercenaries that come for him. These elements are brought off with varying degrees of success.

The opening 12 minutes of the movie feature Riddick sparring with reptilian vultures, jackals and eels, but these are just a prelude to the paramount threat of the local fauna, the giant venomous scorpions that exist in the wetter regions of the barren landscape. Riddick’s man-versus-nature struggle with these various creatures is one of the stronger sequences of the film, in spite of, or possibly because of, the lack of dialogue, save for two short gravel-voiced monologues. Eventually Riddick escapes the elements by finding the remains of a long-abandoned structure to entomb himself, creating, both literally and metaphorically, a cocoon. He flashes back to his recent past on the Necromonger ship and reflects on how he ‘did the worst crime of all, got civilized’, and wakes, his metamorphosis complete and his animalistic edge regained. The flashback, in addition to aiding the franchise’s continuity, serves to separate the movie’s first and second acts, as Riddick awakes ready to deal with both the local threats and the mercenaries he will later summon as part of his rescue plan.

Vaako (Karl Urban) – who is portrayed by an actor who is becoming quite an sf staple, from The Lord of the Rings (2001–03) and Star Trek (2009–) franchises, to Dredd (Travis UK/US/India/South Africa 2012) and, most recently, television’s Almost Human (US 2013–) – returns to explain, in the flashback sequence, how Riddick went...