It’s been nine years since the last time Richard B. Riddick appeared onscreen, and after the box office disappointment of The Chronicles of Riddick, fans of the franchise began to wonder if he would ever return. But thanks to Vin Diesel acquiring the rights to the character and his longtime friendship with writer/director David Twohy, the duo were able to revive the escaped convict for another adventure.
Taking place sometime after the events of Chronicles (which the film completely ignores after the prologue), Riddick finds the titular anti-hero marooned on a desolate planet overrun by vicious predatory creatures. The first 30 minutes of the film are completely engrossing, as we watch Riddick mend his broken body and survive on sheer willpower and instinct. When he stumbles across an abandoned mercenary outpost and activates a distress beacon, two competing groups of bounty hunters arrive, each with a different motive for hunting down their target.
The presence of the mercs also marks a dramatic shift in tone, with Twohy ushering in plenty of sardonic humor as the audience gleefully watches Riddick stalk his enemies, dispatching them one by one in gloriously violent fashion before facing down the tough-as-nails Doll (Katee Sackhoff) and her boss, Johns (Matt Nables). There are very few surprises to be found here, as the director knows exactly what fans of the franchise are looking for and delivers in kind, and viewers expecting a film that resembles Pitch Black more than its sequel will certainly not be disappointed.
Riddick isn’t a great film, by any stretch of the imagination – but it doesn’t have to be. It’s a passion project for Diesel and Twohy, and is designed to cater to an audience that already loves the character and the world, while being just entertaining enough for non-fans to remain interested. In that regard, the film succeeds admirably.