THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK

David Twohy, the Criminal Mastermind

I need to say one thing up front; The Chronicles of Riddick is worse than stomach cancer. Honestly, I can’t even call the film The Chronicles of Riddick; I refuse to accept anything about this piece of incompetent trash. So, for the remainder of this review, The Chronicles of Riddick will be referred to as Rotten Shit-Fest. Got it? Good. I need you all to put on you Sci-Fi (nerd) thinking caps for a second. Remember the drop off in quality that happened with the Star Wars franchise, specifically from like say The Empire Strikes Back to The Phantom Menace? Going from the pretty decent earlier film Pitch Black to Rotten Shit-Fest is a much larger plunge, quality-wise. I’m not kidding. Anything remotely interesting, appealing or redeeming from the first film has been rendered into tripe for the sequel. Just an unbelievably, unimaginably horrible film. Stomach cancer!

There are so many points of entry for me… I really don’t know where to begin. Usually when this happens, I start making lists. So fuck it, here’s a list of fucked, dumb-ass stupid shit that happened during Rotten Shit-Fest. Man, that last sentence had a lot of cursing in it.

• I think the very worst part of the film is when Riddick is reunited with Jack. In the first film, Pitch Black, Jack is a twelve-year-old girl who pretends to be a boy. She also idolizes and copies Riddick’s every move and mannerism. Riddick has some sort of animal like ability and can smell Jack’s menstrual blood, so Jack gets outed to the group as a girl. Rhiana Griffith did a fine job portraying the androgynous kid. In this travesty of storytelling, Jack (Alexa Davalos) has managed to age at least ten years in the span of five. More over, she is now a vicious killer, just like Riddick. She is also a drop dead gorgeous model-type. I mean, maybe a blind-man might mistake her corpse for that of a boy if he wasn’t allowed to touch it. Worst, when the two see each other for the first time in years, Jack attacks him and then says, “Jack is dead. It’s Kyra now.” And that’s it. For some fucking reason, Jack is Kyra. The scene was just handled with such a blunt-edged knife… OK, sure, you need sex appeal (I guess… Patton didn’t) but why trash your earlier work? I mean, this is George Lucas style mendacity, and we haven’t even talked about the criminal over-use of computer graphics yet! Anyways, fucking lame, and “Kyra” was a rotten character anyhow.
• If I was to be juvenile, I would tell you that the names in Rotten Shit-Fest are pretty lame. If I were to be my honest, mature self–and I think I will be just that–I’m telling you that the names in this movie are a slap across the face of any thinking person who watched this woeful atrocity with the (slim) hope of being entertained. The bad guys are called, “Necromongers.” I guess “Deathlovers” would have been too obvious? Ugh… stupid!!! Great characters, too. I’m really interested in their motivation. They basically show up at different worlds (Humans now apparently live on “Helios Prime” I guess “Optimus Prime” was taken) and kill a third of the population, enslave the next third and nuke the third third. Which is really just dull. And somehow, “one man can stop them.” Want to take a guess as to whom? Almost as dumb as the name “Necromongers” is the name of Riddick’s race, “The Furions.” Get it? He’s full of fury! He’s a Furion! By the way, I don’t know how to spell any of these and I don’t care. Judi Dench plays something called an “Elemental.” While not the worst name I’ve ever heard, it is pretty uninspired. Stupider, though, is the fact that the character is totally white and wears only white and her name is “Aereon.” Pronounced “Aryan.” Lordy… One really funny note; the bad guys (Necromongers) walk around in really tight metal outfits that show off their chests and asses real good. Cod pieces, too. The Necromongers refer to non-Necromongers as “Breeders.” Which is hysterical, since that is the derogatory word gay people use to refer to straight people. Like how black guys call white guys “honkeys.” I’m not sure if it is funnier if “Breeders” was intentional or not. Oh fuck, how could I forget that their is something called the “Underverse?” Why it isn’t just called the “Uberverse” is a mystery tht will haunt us all, always. Just kidding, it’s stupid, too.