The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)

 

The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)

 

To really understand why this film is bad, all you have to do is look at the first film in the Franchise. “Pitch Black” (2000) had a lean, single-minded, focus, but still encouraged a sequel. It was modestly budgeted ($23 million) and showed only one Planet but in the context of a Civilization where there were hundreds, if not thousands, and enough Characters survived at the end to explore them. In this, it was much akin to “Forbidden Planet” (1956, its budget, under $2 million, was probably roughly the same, given the decades that elapsed between the two movies), and even more like the TV series “Forbidden Planet” inspired, “Star Trek” (the original TV series, first aired 1966), and specifically echoes one “Star Trek” episode, "The Galileo Seven." Though “Pitch Black” was a theatrical flop, it went on to great success when moving to other platforms (much as “Forbidden Planet” achieved greater success on TV, and “Star Trek” achieved greater success in syndication than first-run).

 

The potential of a really good “Pitch Black” Franchise may have been undermined even before, and especially during, the few short years between the release of it and “The Chronicles of …” because the idea of what a Franchise was changing. The first film’s lead Actor, Vin Diesel as Anti-Hero who evolved into Hero, Richard B. Riddick, went from Modest Star to Super-Star because of the “Fast and Furious” Franchise (first film 2001) and that success was thrived on each subsequent film being bigger, bolder, and more ridiculous, than the one before. In following that lead, the Filmmakers of “Chronicles of …” failed to recognize that the same was ruining most of the then-more-recent “Star Trek” films (I’m talking about four-out-six of the “Star Trek” films released between 1989, when the Heroes unimpressively went to War against God Himself, and 2002, which was even worse) nearly strangling the most beloved of all SF Franchises. “The Chronicles of …” had a much bigger budget than the first film (between $105 - $150 million), and Actor Diesel was now a Producer and got a lot of say about what emerged. He didn’t want another “Pitch Black,” but a Grandiose Epic that really wasn’t rooted in SF at all, but High Fantasy, as Diesel was a fan of “Dungeons & Dragons” (a table-top RPG that came out in 1974, and by this point did have one film (2000), which was awful). Following that path, “The Chronicles of …” became nothing but a lot of empty posturing punctuated by a few exceptionally executed Action Scenes and amazing Production Design. The film stopped being akin to “Star Trek,” perhaps was trying to be “Star Wars” (first film 1978), but lacked both Franchises’ lucidity of purpose, which is exactly why most “Dungeon & Dragons” spin-offs are so bad. Even Critic Jarz, who liked the movie way-more than I did, had to admit it was a “big, bloated, Conan-in-space saga” referring to a Character created by Author Robert Howard in 1932 who also has a checked history of adaptations in cinema and TV. Critic Aren Bergstrom made an excellent, if snide point, “It’s as if the sequel to ‘A Fistful of Dollar’ had made Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name the President of the United States. If you find that description intriguing instead of deeply stupid, ‘The Chronicles of Riddick’ is likely to work for you.”

 

One can’t completely blame Actor/Producer Diesel; he didn’t write it. Blame the Writer/Director David Twonky, who was similarly responsible for the earlier, better, film (Twonky’s co-Writers on the first, Ken and Jim Wheat, are not in evidence here). There were three Characters that survived “Pitch Black,” but the other two are ill-used. Abu al-Walid (Keith David) is killed off way too early. Jack (Rhiana Griffith) arrives too late, and then treated as an Object, rather than Subject, of the script, and was both recast (now played by Alexa Davalos) and renamed as “Kyra.” The film bounces from planet-to-planet at a dizzying pace, but the purpose of this bouncing is fuzzy.

 

At the end of the first film, our Survivors are departing Planet TrES-2b and flying to Planet Helion Prime, specifically the city of New Mecca. This one doesn’t open on Helion, but the frozen Planet U.V, with Riddick running from Bounty Hunters close on his trail. He defeats them, steals their ship, and flies to Helion Prime, wanting to find out who betrayed his location.

 

On Helion Prime we see the film losing sight of itself. Riddick catches up with Abu, a Muslim Iman, who didn’t betray Riddick, but foolishly sent call for help to his old friend. Helion Prime is a multi-Ethic place of Religious Tolerance, but faces destruction because of an invading force of Religious Fanatics, so there is much that could’ve been done with Abu’s role as an Iman, but then the film kills of the only representative of an actual, recognizable, faith, and afterwards is only concerned only with two wholly invented Faiths, both rather silly.

 

The Bad Guys are the Necromongers, a bunch of Death-Worshiping Fetishists, whose devotion to Conquest and Obsession with guaranteeing their own Extermination seems somewhat at odds. Maybe this was influenced by Philosopher Ayn Rand, who condemned ideals of Self-Sacrifice with Submission to Christianity, Communism, and Fascism, but there’s no sense of a Worldly Purpose in any of this, while the Political expressions of Christianity, just like Communism and Fascism, where always conscious of Worldy Purpose. With the Necromongers, one must wonder why they don’t just kill themselves and get it over with.

 

The Not-Bad-Guys are the Elementals, so Ethereal and New-Agey they contribute nothing to the story even though we keep being told they are somehow important.

 

Riddick was a vicious Criminal in “Pitch Black” who underwent a modest Redemption over the course of the film, but he’s still Riddick. He has no intention of fighting for Causes, especially impossible ones, but his new-found sense of Loyalty is fierce, and with Abu dead, the last person left to fight for is Jack/Kyra, now on the ultra-hot Prison Planet Crematoria. After a few completely non-sensical confrontation with Necromongers’ “Holy Half-Dead” Lord Marshall (Colm Feore), Commander Vaako (Karl Urbin), and the Commander’s wife Dame Vaako (Thandi Newton), Riddick turns his back of the Battle-Ground of fallen Helion, allows himself to be captured by Bounty Hunters, and is taken to Prison Planet Crematoria with some vague-idea of Rescuing Jack/Kyra.

 

Am I the only one who noticed this Planet names are stupid?

 

The long stretch of story taking place on Crematoria is largely time-wasting. Riddick does rescue Jack/Kyra, only to see her kidnapped by the Necromongers, brought back to Helion, so that becomes Riddick has to go back there again, to save Jack/Krya again, and this time he has to overthrow the Lord Marshall.

 

Why did the Necromongers bother going to Crematoria? Because, as Lord Marshall explains, Riddick is a creature of Prophesy: He was born on the Planet Furia (never visited in this film) and the Survivor of a King-Herod-style Slaughter of Innocents, so Riddick’s Destiny (that he’s unaware of) to overthrow the Necromongers.

 

OK, so Riddick is Jesus now? Well, I guess relying on Ayn Rand to figure out the point of the film just went out the window. Also, Abu’s Heroic last words, facing mano-a-mano a more skilled and better-armed Necromonger, “There will be an afterlife for me; what will there be for you?” wouldn’t just make Rand choke, but underlines the stupidity of purging the film of all recognizable Faiths in a film about Religious Wars. Critic Ann Hornaday noted, “The scale is massive, the volume incalculable, the mishmash of historical and literary references too thick to untangle.”

 

Two viewers commenting on the Christian website Common Sense Media did their dammedest to untangle the film’s overwhelming, but also incoherent, imagery. Brian Ellison wrote, “Has anyone tried to figure out the symbolism of this movie? The crusaders (Necromongers) are an evil force who travel the universe to convert or kill every man. They resemble knights from the crusades but with a hellish twist. Their architecture looks like Satan did a makeover to a Cathedral. Their leader ‘the Lord Marshal’ has seen the underverse [the Necromongers Heaven] and is a ‘Holy half dead.’ Is he a twisted Christ figure trying to convert the world and force them to his authority or is he the beast and is this Satan’s unholy Christ? Is he meant to be both?”

 

Greg Hartley, “The allegory plunges deeply into Christian History from first opening shot of a three-faced statue clearly representing the Christian Trinity, to the armour-clad Nevromongers taking over a Muslim city. The Chronicles of Riddick is a sci-fi retelling of the Catholic Church’s Crusades against the Muslims during the middle ages. Clearly, the director is offering plenty of criticism of the Catholic church: the dogmatic authority of the pope (represented by the Lord Marshall), the misguided militantism of conversion. In Riddick, we see Christianity through the eyes of its enemies … we see Riddick lead exiles out of captivity (a la Moses), we see him survive in a den of alien lions (a la Daniel), he has survived a slaughter of the innocents as an infant (a la Moses and Christ). The final scenes show Riddick assuming his Messianic Role: he ‘dies’ and returns to the living. He descends into Hell (a burning planet called Crematoria), he fights and defeats the Lord Marshall (the pope) and assumes the throne of leadership (Christ is the true head of the Church). Strangely, the movie ends there and does not explain whether Riddick reforms the Necromonger religion (as Martin Luther did) or whether he abolishes it and replaces it with something else (as Christ did with Judaism).”

 

There’s sharp observations in both of these, but before confusing “The Chronicles of …” with the Christian Fantasies of J.R.R. Tolkien or C.S. Lewis, let’s not forget what the Elemental, Aereon (Judi Dench) said, summarizing the Philosophy of the film, “In normal times, evil should be fought by good, but in times like this, well, it should be fought by another kind of evil.”

 

As much as dislike this film, I must open my heart to what it did right. I already mentioned the well-executed Action Scenes and ambitious Production Design (by Holger Gross). But there’s a problem regarding the Production Design, though mostly marvelous, its excesses are maybe a little grating in service of such a bloated non-story (more than two hours). Critic  MaryAnn Johansonn wrote, “‘The Chronicles of Riddick’ — or, as I like to call it, ‘When Production Designers Go Insane.’” The film was reportedly the third-largest Electricity Consumer in the whole Nation of Canada. Also, the few non-Human Monsters are poorly rendered CGI (mostly the CGI is excellent) while the earlier, cheaper, film had better realized and more original Monsters.

 

There’s another virtue, quoting Jarv again, “a genuinely first rate cast toying with utterly improbable material so all seem to be really enjoying themselves.” Notable is the presence of universally admired Actress Dench; she had a ball. “I filmed for four weeks in Vancouver, Canada. Such a lovely town Vancouver is, and I had such a wonderful time working with there. And all those soundstages, my goodness.” Dench’s unlikely presence was because of how aggressively Actor Deisel courted her, “I was doing a play at the Haymarket Theatre in London, and I didn’t know that Vin Diesel, the one and only, was there. Vin sent me a bouquet of flowers that were so big they couldn’t fit up the stairs to my dressing room. They could not get them into the corridor. Then he asked if I would be in his film. And of course, I said yes. Why ever not?”

 

Diesel said "I was literally playing ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ with Judi Dench and Karl Urban at nights after shooting … I was showing her ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ books and showing her the different properties of Elementals."   Diesel had had an odd career evolution. He was the Lead Character in two obscure films that he also Wrote, Directed, and Produced (“Multi-Facial” (1995) & “Strays” (1997), I’ve seen neither) which drew the attention of Director Steven Spielberg. This led to his career really taking off with a substantive Supporting Role in “Saving Private Ryan” (1998) followed by voicing the Title Character in the Animated film “The Iron Giant” (1999) and another substantive Supporting Role in “The Boiler Room” (2000). One could easily argue the prior three were the films that demonstrated his acting chops, but little of what followed, certainly not the movies that we most associate with his Super-Stardom, really tapped into his talent, but they do ask him to posture gloriously. Riddick isn’t much of a Character really, but Diesel clearly likes playing the Anti-Hero, or as he’s said, "He's a guy that thinks that anything that happens with the universe has nothing to do with him and he doesn't care. That's kind of cool."

 

Also having fun is Actress Newton as Character Dame Vaako, a Nymphomaniac take on Shakespeare’s Lady MacBeth.

 

Writer/Director David Twonky has more Credits as Writer than Director, and there are great films among them, but it’s a pretty mixed bag. Focusing on his Direction (he Wrote or co-Wrote all the films he Directed) and only those that he did after “Pitch Black”: He made the bomb Supernatural Thriller “Below” (2002, I must say, I liked it, but I admit it was seriously muddled), the flop Caper film “The Perfect Getaway” (2009, and I haven’t seen it), and everything else has been “Riddick” related. “The Chronicles of …” bombed in theaters, but like “Pitch Black” did better in other distribution platforms, so the series didn’t end. There’s been three more additions to the Franchise, but I have no plans of looking at any of them.

 

Trailer:

The Chronicles Of Riddick Official Trailer | Science Fiction Station