The Chronicles of Riddick

This is another addition to the list which leans more toward ‘general action’ or ‘science fiction’ more so than’martial arts movie’. But as with the other cases I’ll review it anyway 🙂

This movie revolves around Vin Diesel’s character ‘Riddick’, following the events of Pitch Black. Bounty Hunters are on the look out for Riddick and have tracked him down to his peaceful home on an uncivilized planet. Riddick kills the crew and takes the ship, sparing only the leader of the hunters.

He heads back to the man who hired the Bounty Hunters, a man he befriended during the events of Pitch Black. The hope is that Riddick can help fight off ‘Neckromongers’ – an galactic race of soldiers who travel from planet to planet converting races to their faith, embracing the ‘underverse’.

Riddick steps aside claiming it is not his fight, and tries to trackdown a young woman named ‘Jack’, who renamed herself ‘Kierra’, who has ended up in an underground prison similar to Riddick’s earlier years.

As Riddick tracks her down and plans an escape, the Neckromongers follow Riddick under the command of their superiors, who fear his potential. So naturally all things converse and eventually riddick must escape the prison planet and rescue Kierra from the necromongers.

Expanding the Universe of Riddick

Pitch Black introduced us to Riddick and a very narrow view on his universe. Chronicles of Riddick expands into large scale sci-fi universe that seems exist completely independent of Earth (which isn’t even mentioned).

More so we are shown a bit more of a history behind this universe and it’s main man – Riddick. Riddick is a ‘Furian’ born of the planet Furia, a planet converted some 30 years ago by the Neckromongers.

What is also interesting is that our main villian follows a prophecy that a Furian will be who ends his life, so naturally he does anything possible to wipe out the Furians. So we’re getting dose of interstellar history and how this relates to Riddick and his role in the universe.

The movie itself is set against very visual scenery, reliant heavily on CGI. Although it’s not the best CGI you’ve seen, it really paints a picture of the planets and worlds visited by Riddick an the other characters. It’s more of a space odyssey than a localized thriller (as pitch Black was) but overall i think it works.

Action and Martial Arts

This film relies more on gun fights, adventure and CGI than martial arts.

With the Neckromongers being powerful beings and their lord having even more superhuman powers, we see a more animated action film than one backed by physical performance and chroegraphy, but t still has a small fraction of martial arts action.

While the action is pretty entertaining, the martial arts is very standard and nothing special. As Eric Scissorhands states in the list, Riddick’s fighting style is a messy variation of Kali, a Filipino martial art. When you think kali, you may think the ‘kali sticks’ or pieces of bamboo and blunt weapons, but in most cases we see Riddick reaching for a couple of sharp knives and slicing people up with some sweeping slashes, often using both blades.

This only makes up for a small fraction of the action though. it really is a bit more general, but decent nonetheless.

Should you watch it?

I’m on the fence, I love Science fiction (a healthy does of Star Wars or Star Trek wont go astray) so I enjoyed his film. So you’ll have to toss it up and make up your own mind.