The Riddick franchise released 3.5 films for fourteen years and supposedly still has a plan to release one more. It is the ugly step-child in the family of Vin Diesel franchises. It is no less interesting as a Vin vehicle though and worth examining in full.
4. Pitch Black [2000]
Pitch Black is both an “in-progress” Vin Diesel star vehicle and an admirable if underwhelming Alien knockoff. To be clear, I support more films going the Alien route. It is one of the best films ever with a malleable premise, ripe for stealing. The film though either needed Vin’s persona to carry the day or the execution of the premise to carry him, and neither was quite up to the task. It’s a testament though to both that this film that is clearly unsuccessful is still pretty fun and easy to watch. They probably should have stuck to practical effects for the actual aliens though.
3. The Chronicles of Riddick [2004]
While not a perfect film or even a good film, the big budget (and biggest budget of the series) Chronicles of Riddick makes the most important decision any aspiring franchise can make: it makes this film very different than what came before it. Pitch Black was an Alien-knockoff horror film whereas Chronicles is like three dozen films at once. It’s an adventure film, fantasy film, prison break film, and a mythmaking-chosen one film all at once. Now, it’s not a good version of any of those films, but I do sincerely appreciate the bozo energy it takes to Go For It like this film truly does. Diesel’s confidence grew in leaps and bounds from Pitch Black to here. It helps to compensate for some of the film’s inadequacies (of which there are too many to list).
2. Dark Fury [2004]
The people with money invested in The Chronicles of Riddick spent a lot of said money on this thirty minute anime short film designed solely as a special feature for a DVD. This is the better world we all need to fight for. This is the type of shit we deserve. It is also just fun enough in its own right. Sure, it unnecessarily fills in the blanks between the two sequels, but more time with Vin Diesel and Keith David in this world is an exercise worth doing. It’s also cool it happened in a different form that allowed for a different kind of creativity. Let’s do more of this kind of shit, please.
1. Riddick [2013]
Vin Diesel traded being in a cameo for Tokyo Drift for getting the rights to the Riddick franchise, and I think that is just beautiful. This is the type of inspirational stuff that just gets you through the day and allows you to believe there is good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.
The film earned its way into my good graces immediately by once again following the golden rule of good franchises: it did not just try to remake previous films and instead tried to do its own thing. If anything, it feels like it borrows parts of both of its predecessors along with adding its own new significant dynamic.
You have the scaled down monster-movie, Alien-knockoff energy of the first one along with addressing the lore that was so heavily a part of Chronicles. The best part of this film is neither of those things though. The highlight of this film is the first act where it’s just Vin being Vin. Any pretense that he is playing some alien being named Riddick is out the window. He’s in star persona mode at the beginning of his film and now he has himself a space dog. This was good stuff.
The second and third acts try to force Vin back into Riddick mode which is too cold-blooded of a role for Vin. It’s okay for Vin to be an outsider, but ultimately he is most successful on screen bringing people together and making a makeshift family. That happens the most here when he is just hanging out with his space dog and towards the end when the mercs start to realize he is not all bad. Hopefully any future Riddick films that exist are like that.
The Reel World 