I just got back from watching the latest installment of the Riddick franchise. Now I have to say I'm a huge fan of the series. I love Vin Diesel as Riddick. I've seen all the movies, played both video games on multiple systems). I was fangirling hardcore when I heard this movie was coming out. And it's here.
Before I get into what I thought about the movie, might I suggest that if you're going to go see Riddick watch Pitch Black beforehand. There's a character that I knew was going to be a big reveal since they kept his name secret for ages and when he said his name I couldn't for the life of me remember why his name meant anything until Riddick filled in the missing pieces when they finally meet.
Ok on to my thoughts. Ummm, it wasn't what I expected. The theaters around me all had 8pm preview shows. I was excited since I could go early and get home to write this and not be getting to sleep at 4am (we've broken up, 4am and I. It's facebook official and everything). Then the gears started turning. Why was there an 8pm preview? Was there a meeting somewhere that the outcome was well we've moved the midnight preview to 10pm why not trial run 8pm and see how it goes or did this movie suck so bad that they needed to bilk every dollar out of us moviegoers by adding a preview at a time that most people would jump at. Unfortunately it looks more like the latter.
Don't get me wrong I didn't hate the movie, I just wasn't thrilled with it. If this movie was the second movie and Chronicles of Riddick was scheduled to come out in a few years then it would make way more sense. There would be a few plot things to fix like how/why Riddick ended up on the planet he's on, but since it's already been established that he's on the run all the time being chased by Mercs, then there's your how and why.
The first solid 20-25 minutes of the movie is Riddick wandering this wasteland he's been left on. There's barely any dialogue, which is fine since he's not a big talker anyway (we'll get into his dialogue later), and a random naked Riddick moment, but after a point it got old. They could have snipped a bit of this and shortened the 2 hour run time. Although for 2 hours it does go by quick.
Once the action kicks in however, Riddick is back in all his glory. The Mercs show up and all hell breaks loose. Riddick hunts them while they hunt him, nothing new, but still pretty awesome. One character, Dahl, was the only one that kept me interested of the supporting characters. She's the only female, she's tough as nails, and watching her beat up one of the guys more than once was great. She has a great line "I don't fuck guys. I do fuck them up on occasion." Made me like her even more. Other than that I was just waiting to see how Riddick killed the other Mercs off.
As I said earlier Riddick is a man of few words and when he speaks it's direct and to the point. For some reason this script kept putting words in his mouth that were completely out of character and sometimes that little smirk Vin Diesel had on his face I swear was because he was thinking "Am I really saying this?" He says "I'll ride it like I stole it" at one point and I understand it was probably a reference to Fast and Furious, but it didn't fit with Riddick for me. His dialogue aside, the action scenes for him were pure Riddick. The scene in the preview where he kicks the knife across the room leads to a spectacular death scene and everyone in the theater cheered (ok there were 6 of us in there so it was more of a group "that was awesome")
I'm not going to tell you don't see it. For the most part unless it's Sharknado I'm never going to to tell you don't bother seeing something. I'd wait until it's at RedBox or streaming on Netflix though. You can stop reading now if you don't want to read a spoiler about the end of the movie. I won't be mad if you do.
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OK are they gone?
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So there's a scene near the end where Riddick gets stabbed by one of the monsters in the dark and has a hole in his chest the size of a tin can. The guy he's with throws a grenade of sorts that leaves white hot baseball sized pieces of rock on the ground near a slowly bleeding out Riddick. So what does he do? Channels Rambo and grabs one of the scorching hot baseballs and cauterizes the wound. I had a moment of "really guys?" He then proceeds to climb up the side of a jagged cliff fighting the monsters the whole way up losing his weapons the further he climbs and there's a shot of him beating the things with his fists while the thunder cracks and the lightening strikes (I almost ended up in a Meatloaf song there for a minute, anyway) it wasn't my cup of tea, but worked for the climatic ending I guess. In which Dahl comes down on a rescue tether and proceeds to straddle Riddick to tie him into the other harness and she asks him "Is this what you like?" as he grabs her ass while they're both hoisted into the hovering ship. I had to laugh at that moment. I saw it coming from a mile away, but it was great. Trust me I'd never say no if asked to straddle Riddick. Vin Diesel would have to at least take me to dinner first though :)
