Yes the movie was a tad long, not women-friendly, and uber violent. But hey, it is a Vin Diesel film about a career convict (what was Riddick’s original crime?) in an inhospitable planet with warring mercenaries baying for his blood.
So Riddick is in this planet filled with evil predators. He sets his broken leg by some rough and ready means. He sticks it between rocks, and screws the bones together — without anaesthesia! He then gets himself an alien puppy — which behaves remarkably like a playful Labrador, right down to goofy eyes. He inoculates himself and his puppy against the venom of some other beastie and sets off to look for a way-out of the god-forsaken planet.
He looks into the distance, barks out it is time and sets off the emergency beacon, which brings two sets of mercenaries. One group is headed by Santana who wants to put Riddick’s head in a box, while the other led by Boss Johns seems to have some secret agenda.
In the midst of all the murderous mayhem, Riddick does a quick recap of what happened from the time of The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) till now which includes his betrayal by Vaako (Karl Urban trying hard to look sneery and serious). Dangling Furia (“home has a certain equity”) before Riddick, thanks to the bad guys, he ends up “in a place called not Furia.”
The violence is brutal, the sets befittingly grim and the beasties beastly. David Twohy who wrote and directed the previous two instalments, including Pitch Black (2000), has created a movie that fans of the franchise will enjoy — blue eyes and all. The 46-year-old Diesel owns the film gravelly voice, lazy smile and all. When he puts his arm around the scary-looking mutt, you cannot help going awww. Like all post-apocalyptic movies, the Bible gets its run time in this film as well — “Leave God out of this, he wants no part of what happens next”.
And there are the dialogues. Take your pick from “What are we playing, retard bingo?” “Death is what they do for a living” or “There are bad days and then there are legendary bad days.”
Genre: Science fiction
Cast: Vin Diesel and others
Director: David Twohy
Storyline: Riddick needs to go home
Bottomline: Suitably stuffed with gore, political incorrectness and one-liners
