THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK: It Could Have Been Great Sci-Fi

At the very beginning, I must admit that, as probably one of the few amateurs who write about film, I used to believe in the directorial skills of a man named David Twohy. His previous works, namely Pitch Black (the sequel to which is The Chronicles of Riddick) and Below, turned out to be surprisingly good representatives of their respective genres.

Pitch Black, drawing on the best inspirations from classic science fiction films, told a neat and quite original story, which won him a following and became the direct reason for the creation of the next film about the adventures of the partially blinded convict. Without a doubt, alongside the interesting plot, the strongest point of this endeavor was the then-little-known Vin Diesel. However, this happened not because of some particular acting talent freshly discovered by Twohy, but mainly because of the surprising charisma of this actor and his hypnotic voice. After Pitch Black and The Fast and the Furious, in which Diesel shone against the backdrop of the soap-opera-like Paul Walker, I was ready to proclaim the arrival of a worthy successor to the action movie giants of the 80s, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone.

The Chronicles of Riddick, however, is a completely different story. Without a doubt, David Twohy could afford quite a bit of extravagance this time, with a massive production budget at his disposal. And he almost single-handedly steered the ship, as the film was written and directed by him and produced by Diesel himself. Once again, the old rule proved to be true: barriers (in this case, budgetary) stimulate development and creativity. While the aforementioned Pitch Black was an original film made with ideas, and paradoxically, the financial shortcomings were not visible, The Chronicles of Riddick suffers from a shocking lack of originality and an overwhelming excess of special effects, which, though flawless on their own, seem to be placed in the film somewhat “forcefully.”

Nevertheless, the visual aspect is the only one that is hard to criticize and is undoubtedly the strongest point of the film. It’s a pity that it’s the only strength, because this time both the plot and the main character fail, with Diesel pushing the character almost to the point of caricature. I will not criticize the natural and astronomical absurdities occurring in another part of the universe, attributing them to the convention that always plays a huge role in such cases. However, it is precisely the plot, influenced by the increased budget, that has probably suffered the most.

It begins quite surprisingly, from the very start. A solid reward is placed on Riddick’s head as a fugitive criminal, attracting all manner of bounty hunters. We do not yet know who is chasing him, why, and why the reward for bringing him alive is so high. And here is where the problems begin. Why the hell does our convict leave his secluded, though safe, hideout on a distant planet to go to a city full of people, where he immediately attracts the attention of those who are after him? One can understand his interest in the bounty on his head, but does it change his situation in any way?

In short, the action lacks the proper motivation for the protagonist, which causes the convention, in which he is a key element, to begin to fall apart at the seams. To make matters worse, Twohy unnecessarily introduces supernatural powers, turning Riddick and his main antagonist into heroes of a prophecy straight out of a fantasy story. It is unclear, however, what fate intertwined their paths in the prophecy, nor why the intergalactic outcast would stand in the way of the most powerful ruler of the universe.

The origin of the Necromongers also leaves much to be desired, as their customs place them somewhere between the fanatical cult members of Charles Manson and Nazis from the Thule Gesellschaft. Neither the prologue nor the rest of the story reveals anything beyond the fact that they are driven by a desire to conquer the universes and kill all those who refuse to convert to their “faith.” Upon closer examination of the story and after discarding the absurd embellishments, we are left with an age-old messianic tale about a hero who, almost single-handedly, brings an evil empire to its knees, saving (the Universe) from destruction. Not that I have anything against such storylines, as the Wachowski siblings in The Matrix showed that even from such an overused theme, you can make a commercial gem that, in addition, gives a good punch to film theorists of all kinds, but with one “but” – that the protagonist will be able to carry the story’s weaknesses on his shoulders and make the viewer forget about them.

In Pitch Black and The Fast and the Furious, Diesel showed that he can handle such a task perfectly, but here, whether due to too high a salary or Twohy’s weaker directorial form, Vin disappointed. In the original, Riddick was truly a beast, focused only on survival, a cynic, but not devoid of human feelings, who fought with surrounding monsters exactly as if he were one of them, which was perfectly emphasized by the fact that, like them, he was the only one who could see in the dark.

In The Chronicles of Riddick, only a faint trace of his cynicism remains, replaced by the unbearable messianic mannerism seen in the sequels to The Matrix, and the protagonist’s partially animalistic nature is concluded with a heavy-handed scene of taming the monster. In Pitch Black, Riddick was “there” almost incidentally, in The Chronicles of Riddick, he dominates every camera movement. With the effort the creators made to focus the viewer’s attention on the character played by Diesel, they exposed his technical shortcomings, which in his performance showed at times glaring artificiality.

Without going into further detail about the shortcomings of the work by the Twohy-Diesel duo, it must be said that The Chronicles of Riddick, although not a very bad film, was quite disappointing, because with the financial conditions the creators had, something could have been made that would have not only advanced both of their careers but, above all, created a film that would have been a milestone in science fiction cinema. They were capable of that.