HC Reviews

The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury & The Chronicles of Riddick

Dark Fury

Vin Diesel .... Richard B. Riddick (voice)
Rhiana Griffith .... Jack (voice)
Keith David .... Abu 'Imam' al-Walid (voice)
Roger L. Jackson .... Junner (voice)
Tress MacNeille .... Chillingsworth (voice)
Nick Chinlund .... Toombs (voice)

Chronicles of Riddick

Vin Diesel .... Riddick
Alexa Davalos .... Kyra
Keith David .... Imam
Colm Feore .... Lord Marshal
Thandie Newton .... Dame Vaako
Karl Urban .... Vaako
Linus Roache .... Purifier
Judi Dench .... Aereon
Yorick van Wageningen .... The Guv
Nick Chinlund .... Toombs

I really wish I had gone for the trifecta of Pitch Black, Dark Fury, and Chronicles all at once so I could give you a review of all of them at once. Netflix, oddly enough, has the Director's Cut version of Chronicles but not the Theatrical Release and only has the Theatrical Release of Pitch Black but not the Director's Cut.

[whiny Netflix nitpick] I wish Netflix would either just have one version of a movie on DVD or start carrying both versions if a movie has one. It makes no sense to have the director's cut but not the theatrical release for one movie and vice versa for another.[/wnn].

Dark Fury is an animated short (directed by the guy who animated Aeon Flux) that's supposed to bridge the gap between Pitch Black and Chronicles. I'm unclear as to why people needed that bridge because I felt that the 5 year gap was explained well enough in Chronicles, but then again, maybe I was the only one paying attention in the theatre when it first came out.

In Dark Fury, Jack (who becomes Kyra), Imam and Riddick are captured by a mercenary ship governed by a weird chick who views killing as art and therefore has caputured a bunch of wanted criminals and put them into a sort of cryo sleep and has them on display. Her ultimate conquest is Riddick and she puts him to the killing test, using Imam and Jack/Krya as bait. Naturally, Riddick kills the bad guys and they get away but one of the "Mercs" vows to find Riddick.

The animation is very reminiscient of Aeon Flux, so if you liked that style, then you'll enjoy this animation. I found it a little too animé for my tastes, but it didn't detract from my enjoyment of the short.

I will take a moment to insert a little squee! here over Vin Diesel's voice. YUM! In the live action movie, you're concentrating more on the visual of Vin so his voice gets lost. But when you're watching something animated, his deep gravelly voice just comes barrelling out at you and yowsah!

Overall, it's a pretty decent flick, if an unnecessary one.

The DVD has a nice little behind the animation feature about the movie and one about the director. It also has the full movie in animatic version so you can watch both it and the movie and compare (which, yes, I did).

In Chronicles, the movie finds Riddick 5 years later, on the run from the Merc from Dark Fury, Toombs. Riddick finds out it was Imam who put the bounty on him and he goes to where Imam lives to find out why. Turns out, Imam did it at the urging of Aereon, an Elemental, who is seeking to bring balance to the universe by getting rid of the Necromongers. Necromongers are a race of religious beings who go planet to planet, conquering worlds. They make the people of those worlds convert to the Necromonger way. Those who don't are left on the planet but then the planet is destroyed. Riddick gets drawn into the fight against the Necromongers when the Lord Marshall orders him to be killed.

Okay. For people who were expecting Pitch Black 2: Riddick vs. Alien, those people were sorely disappointed. Where Pitch Black was a Sci-Fi Alien movie, Chronicles is a Sci-Fi Action Epic. The Director's Cut has added scenes explaining Riddick's background as a Furyan a tiny bit more (just a smidge though), bloodier battle and fight scenes, more action scenes during the Prison sequence, and a slightly different ending.

The extended scenes do help clear up some of the unanswered questions that were there when you viewed the theatrical release. Some of the uneven editing is also cleaned up as well.

The special effects are still amazing, especially those involving the Lord Marshall. The action and fight scenes kick ass, especially now that they're a bit bloodier.

There are still way too many plot lines going on in the movie. Riddick vs. the Mercs. Riddick vs. the Necromongers. Riddick vs. the Prison and then vs. the Sun. The Necromongers are supposed to be the Big Bad yet the Director feels the need to pull the audience out of that story line right in the middle and put us into a whole different story line. It's no wonder the movie was over 2 hours long.

Overall an enjoyable sequel.

The DVD opens with 2 options: Convert or Fight. Either option takes you to the same features which was disappointing. I expected the Convert option to have stuff about the Necromongers and Fight to have stuff about everything else. That would've been cool.

There's an easter egg that gives a quick behind the scenes look at a fight scene between Riddick and the Lord Marshall. There's also a couple behind the scenes vignettes. One with Vin Diesel showing off some of the sets and a standard "interview with everyone to generate buzz" extra. There's also a series of explanitory featurettes to let you know who all the people are and what not (i.e., an explanation of Helion Prime; who the Elementals are; etc.). The standard commentary with Director and Actors is there as well. Unfortunately not with Vin; it's with the Director, the girl who played Kira, and Karl Urban (who referenced Lord of the Rings a lot).

The best extra though, has to be what I like to call the Pop Up Video™ extra. When you activated this feature, during the movie, little tidbits of information popped up. Stuff like background information about the characters or stuff about what happened during filming or things about the actors. I love shit like that.

And if you kept count, yes I watched this movie 3 times.

Posted by xinh at May 11, 2005 01:08 AM