Diesel Steams On
Main Cast: Vin Diesel, Colm Feore, Alexa Davalos, Karl Urban
Director: David Twohy
You can’t keep a bad guy down. Yes, Riddick, the anti-hero from Pitch Black, is back for another thrilling installment. This time he is thrown against a group of religious fanatics who want to take over the galaxy and spread their own brand of fire and brimstone, which seems to involve poking people in the neck with sharp needles and wearing trendy leather armor (which looks very fine indeed on Thandie Newton, so I’m not complaining).
The story begins on an ice planet and a man running from some type of spaceship. Turns out to be Riddick (Diesel), chased by mercs hunting his bounty. He manages to escape and tracks down the source of the bounty. That leads to a conversation with an Elemental (Judi Dench), who tells him that he is a Fury, a race of uberwarriors who are the only thing that the leader of the cult is afraid of. Some type of prophecy about the “Fury baby” coming back and killing him made him (reasonably from his point of view) to pretty much wipe out that entire planet. But he missed one…
The tale is told briskly, so we don’t really go into Riddick’s past, nor of what actually happened to the cult leader (he went to “the other side” and came back with some neat tricks, but nothing more is said about that place), but the constant action makes up for the weak plot. Riddick travels to some cool locations, even a prison at one point, and of course his unique black eyes come in handy at various points.
It’s a pretty good action romp not overdone with special effects: there is more to this movie than pretty colors. While it isn’t quite as good as Pitch Black, it does have its moments, and if you are in for a good action yarn without too much thought, this one will work well.
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