If you are a fan of the typical sci-fi action movie, then you’ll already know what happens in Riddick.
Directed by David Twohy and starring Vin Diesel, it’s the follow-up to 2004’s The Chronicles of Riddick. Jordi Molla, Matt Nable, and Katee Sackhoff also star in the film, with a plot that has already been done to death. Various movies like Alien and Prometheus have done the same exact thing. It’s the good ol’ “guys go on a mission and die off one by one hunting their prey” setup. Chances are you’ll predict what will happen next and experience bouts of boredom.
Riddick has two major flaws: an exhaustive running time and a predictable plot and characters. For a sci-fi action movie, Riddick rarely elicits the excitement that other films like Pacific Rim and Man of Steel evoke with ease. It spends roughly thirty minutes setting up Riddick’s backstory, then spends the next hour of the movie away from Riddick, instead focusing on a group of dull bounty hunters. The action comes during the last thirty minutes, when it’s just Riddick fighting a swarm of murderous monsters.
The trite supporting characters don’t help either. There’s the sleazy bad guy (Molla), the conflicted good guy (Nable), and the hostile female (Sackhoff). Molla over-exaggerates as the slimy bounty hunter Santana. Nable turns in a decent performance as Boss Johns, who is conflicted about whether or not Riddick is a villain. Sackhoff, who previously played Starbuck in the television show Battlestar Galactica, is severely underutilized. She plays a tough female who growls her lines, is overly hostile and punches men for insulting her. Vin Diesel is quite good as Riddick, however, portraying the hardened criminal with gravitas.
Despite all its flaws, the movie does have one silver lining: Riddick’s relationship with his dog. The interactions between Riddick and his dog show his softer side, which is in stark contrast to his brutality towards others. However, this alone is not enough to make up for all that the film lacks.
Riddick isn’t bad; it just doesn’t bring anything new to the table. Its predictable plot is hard to get excited about and a few redeeming qualities can’t save this sci-fi flick from being a dud.
