Review: Riddick
Year: 2013
Director: David Twohy
Screenplay: David Twohy
Starring: Vin Diesel, Katee Sackhoff
Synopsis is here
If there’s one thing I enjoy about Riddick, it’s that the
character is a survivor. The story of Vin
saving his baby is an interesting one worth noting. With the rights in his
power and his credit as producer, Vin now has the chance to slim down the
bloated and dull elements that made Chronicles of Riddick such a misshapen
beast. The character of Riddick fared better in Pitch Black, a solid Sci-Fi B
movie that I found adequate, yet was embraced by many.
Making the third Riddick entry, a smaller scale picture is a
decent idea. Yes, there may be less money involved, but in all honesty who
really thought the character of Riddick would thrive in that more large scale
environment? Like Dredd, having Riddick
exist to live out these smaller, more self contained adventures is a good way
to go in a world where so many larger scale “epics” feel that they have to
destroy a city to get viewers to care.
Some of the more needless mythology is stripped down in the
beginning of this third adventure with most of what happened in the second film
reduced to a near pointless cameo appearance. We’re given Riddick in a near
desolate world, having to having to survive as well as he can off the land. A
difficult task as most of what inhabits the land seems hell-bent on trying to
kill him. This is perhaps my favourite section
of the film. To have our main character on his own for so long, with almost
nobody to interact with, tackling the elements is quite a brave thing to do in
this day and age. Riddick seems to hint that it’s a film that willing to take a
few risks. Then the rest of the cast turn up.
The film’s tone shifts, but not for the better. The harsh
environment moves to the background as a quite boring bunch of stock characters
come forth and talk about things that aren’t particularly interesting, while
Riddick employ a stalk and slash affair that does little to stand out (save one
head splitting sequence). The films climax appears to be a throwback that may
engage bigger Riddick fans than I, but by then I was too drained of interest
from what had happened before. Oh and then there’s the whole sexism argument
that’s cropped up.
Yes, there’s been talk of strong talk from British critics
stating that the exchanges with Vin’s Riddick and Katee Sackhoff’s Dahl
character reek of horrible, vulgar sexism. I don’t wish to dismiss this issue.
I feel the issues that females have in media is bad enough, when we jump into
sub-cultures such as Sci-Fi it often gets much worse. However looking back at the film and
listening to an interesting counter-point from a good and wise friend, I did
wonder why it’s this film that appeared to be the straw that broke the camel’s
back for the likes of Helen O’ Hara. I do believe she has a point that the
writing of the Dahl shows a frustrating doe-eyed change that occurs with the
film that feels tonally off (than again Sackhoff’s performance is surprisingly
off key). Yet looking at the likes of better movies which work around the same
pulp and are way more popular often don’t appear to gain as much scorn,
particularly now. Considering the likes
of Escape from New York or even branching off to the works of Agento and De
Palma (whose work is currently being strongly revised), Riddick seems to getting slammed a hell of a lot.
Not to say that the film is not at fault. Riddick at one
point makes a comment that makes him sound more like an adolescent tweeter
faceless lipping off to a feminist journo than a badass. But I found myself
considering that the film is so bland that crappy sexual politics is the only
thing that could spark any conversation of this film.
Despite holding a certain amount of B movie charm and Diesel
obviously having a fondness for this project, I found that Riddick held such a
lack of interest, that the talk surrounding the film was far more interesting
than the film itself. Do I find the
gender issues problematic? Yes, but with that said I’d rather Hollywood get off
its arse and create a Wonder Woman I’ll remember then helping Vin Diesel and
David Twohy bring about a slightly offensive Riddick film that will most likely
be forgotten.
