Riddick is a sci-fi action movie produced by Vin Diesel and is the third movie starring the highly skilled predator/anti-hero. It takes place 5 years after the events in The Chronicles of Riddick and opens up with Riddick near death and buried beneath rubble. As he struggles to recover from his wounds and survive in the harsh and ruthless environment of this world he finds himself on, he reflects on what led to him being left for dead on this planet after becoming leader of the Necromongers. His refusal to convert to their religion created a hostile situation where he had to constantly watch his back, so he made a deal with Commander Vaako for the location of Furya, which only he knew, and a ship to get him there. And in return, Vaako would become the leader of the Necromongers. In an obvious turn of events in which even Riddick admits he should have seen coming, he is betrayed and left for dead on a different and hostile planet. He states that becoming civilized was his mistake and that he’s going back to being an animal. And he’ll need all his survival skills to make it off the planet alive.

From the very first scene it was clear that it would be brutal, or as Riddick would say, just his way of going back to being an animal. It was also clear that this apparently barren planet was dangerous, terrifying even, but Riddick was the biggest badass on it. And it wasn’t as if he was portrayed as completely invincible, especially considering the movie started off with him injured, instead he was portrayed as having the right combination of ingenuity, survival instinct, physical prowess, and of course ruthlessness, as the environment dictated. And for a Riddick movie that was the perfect tone to set early on.

There wasn’t much given regarding the events of the second movie and how Riddick ended up on this new planet aside from him reflecting on it, but that allowed the movie to get back to the basics. Seeing Riddick learn and adapt to the planet he was on was solid and his ability to survive was portrayed in a very realistic way because even though his enemies only see his fighting ability, his intelligence is clearly a big part of his ability to survive. And he wouldn’t be alone for long as he becomes friends with an alien canine and raises it. And there are some good humorous moments and whether you’re an alien dog person or an alien cat person, you’ll still enjoy and understand these moments. And it’s crucial to the storyline as well because where as Riddick sees oncoming clouds as a good thing and bringing rain to a barren planet, his alien canine perceives it completely different. And Riddick understands: they have to get off the planet.

There are other human characters in the movie besides Riddick so no worries, this is more than 2 hours of Riddick wandering around a desert. Riddick has to get off the planet but he has no ship and no way to communicate with anyone who would be able to help him. He does, however, find a mercenary station, and since he’s still a wanted convict, he uses the station to identify himself knowing it would bring various mercenaries from off planet who would want to collect on his bounty, dead or alive. The reason he would do this is simple: he needs a ship and if they leave one ship for him they can live. This would begin an entertaining (and at times deliberately humorous) game of cat and mouse between Riddick and the two mercenary groups who arrive to catch him. And the two mercenary groups weren’t carbon copies of each other so the contrast worked for the most part in the sense that even though some were obviously there to give Riddick some people to kill, it allowed Riddick to deal with them in various ways. And I have to add that I’m glad Katee Sackhoff was in this because I always enjoy her roles. And there’s no deep backstory given for the mercenaries, nor is one needed. I won’t get into any details regarding any possible history between Riddick and the mercenaries but I will say that it’s not a necessity to have seen the first two movies in order to enjoy this one. And there’s plenty to enjoy from the action in the beginning, to the initial cat and mouse game with the mercenaries, and the story holds up, although there seems to not be much to the story other than Riddick’s survival and attempt to get off the planet. However, I always interpreted certain things as symbolism ever since Pitch Black and I saw similar things this time around and even now I’m thinking about different aspects of that. And even if you don’t care for any symbolism, there was a statement that one of the mercenaries made that would greatly underestimate his target. He stated that he didn’t understand the big deal about Riddick because he was just some convict, and if you watch this movie with that same mentality you won’t be able to enjoy some of the finer things about it, or appreciate the attention to detail, improvisation, and preparation by Riddick that were key to his survival and ultimately gave him the advantage. There’s plenty of action to enjoy and distributed evenly throughout the movie so none of the action sequences felt extremely long and as one who enjoys good sci-fi action movies, I can say that I definitely enjoyed the action here. Beware the oncoming clouds.

SUMMARY

Riddick gets back to basics and focuses on what originally made the character so appealing, and in doing so becomes the best entry in the series to date. This isn’t an origin story, however it does an excellent job in showing clearly the intrinsic nature of Riddick’s ability to survive and adapt, and does so in an entertaining way. There are references to events in Pitch Black that could have been clarified for those who didn’t see it through a very quick flashback or other storytelling mechanism, but the story is still easy to follow. And if you’re going to see a Riddick movie, it’s mostly for the action and this movie delivers in that department big time. There are more than a few scenes that will have you unexpectedly reacting, and I mean that in a good way. If you enjoyed any of previous Riddick movies then I highly recommend this one. If you’re a fan of sci-fi action movies, or you just want that last summer fling before the clouds come rolling in, I definitely recommend Riddick.