Pitch Riddick

Among other things yesterday I bought from Best Buy, Riddick Trilogy. The two disc set has The Chronicles of Riddick: Pitch Black, The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury and The Chronicles of Riddick; all in one neat little package. I should preface this post by saying I am not a fan of Vin Diesel. I hate how he has this badass, action hero persona where he is a man of few words but a lot of force.

All that brings me to Pitch Black, a movie I rented a few years ago and hated. My impression of it now is the same as it was back then, it's nothing more than a glorified made for TV movie. The action is uninspired, the acting is ridiculous and over-the-top, the story was non-existent and the twists were predictable. One might wonder why I would even pick up this set if I hated the movie so much. That would be for Chronicles of Riddick.

Before I would be able to watch Chronicles of Riddick, I would have to sit through a 35-minute animated disaster called Dark Fury. Dark Fury is meant to bridge the story from Pitch Black to Chronicles of Riddick. It features the voice work of original cast members from Pitch Black and tied the stories nicely together, too bad it's practically unwatchable. The production feels rushed, the animation is choppy, and the voice work is terrible. I got the impression the actors didn't want to do this but with the impending release of Chronicles of Riddick, they knew they had to do something to explain what happened immediately following Pitch Black.

After sitting through two terrible movies, it was time to begin watching Chronicles of Riddick. When I first saw the previews, I wondering what Universal was thinking making Riddick a franchise character after such an abominable first movie. The previews looked impressive in scale, but I didn't understand how they were going to tie in the world of Pitch Black with what I was seeing on screen. Although I don't think they did a very good job of tying the two worlds together, Chronicles of Riddick was a much better movie.

Even though Vin Diesel brought back his robotic acting routine and Rhiana Griffith did not reprise her role as Jack, the movie actually had a story and the characters were interesting. I wished I had seen this movie before seeing the others because I might have walked away with a better impression of the franchise. Regardless, Chronicles of Riddick may not be on of my favorite movies, nor would I consider it a great movie, but it certainly has redeemed itself as an interesting sci-fi franchise.