Film Hick: Riddick by David Twohy (2013)

How I wanted this to be a great film; how I wanted it to steal back some of the ground that the second movie lost for the sequel; how I wish that I could report that it succeeded. But it didn\’t.

I loved Pitch Black and I think that the reason worked as well as it did was not just because of the innovative look that it achieved, but because Riddick had a worthy ensemble cast to play off … the whole movie didn\’t ride on him. The second movie limped by on the excuses fans like myself were willing to make because it had some good ideas, even if the execution lacked, and the ambition wasn\’t realised.

So, where do we find ourselves with this iteration of the character? Bored. It was like the air had been let out of the tyre, and the movie had nowhere to go. It wanted to recapture something of the first movie, wanted to tie off the amputated stump of the unrealised ambition of the second movie, but seemed to lack the energy to do either.

We know Riddick, and we know what Riddick is capable of. We don\’t want him comfortable – he needs to be rigorously tested, threatened, and something interesting might emerge. Neither the creatures, nor the cardboard cut-out adversaries, nor the story offer him any meat to sink his teeth into here. Who would have thought that this franchise would have died in its sleep? Who would have thought it would have kept walking around past that point? No one wants their movie watching to have a soporific effect, but this story here was a snoozer and a loser.