The expectations were high for the return of Vin Diesel’s anti-hero – and he just about pulls it off.
Night-visioned ex-convict Riddick is back, albeit with a smaller budget akin to his original Pitch Black outing, and he’s been left for dead on a desolate nightmare planet after being betrayed by the Necromongers and exiled by Lord Vaako (Karl Urban).
After battling for survival against an impressive array of planetary predators he locates an emergency beacon that brings in two squads of bounty hunters and mercenaries, one consisting of ex-WWE champion Dave Bautista and the other featuring Battlestar Galactica’s Katee Sackhoff, with the chance of commandeering one of their ships being his only hope for escape.
For the first hour or so Riddick returns welcomely back to his roots as he tangles with these opposing forces in a game of cat and mouse. But sadly a lot of the good work unravels with an overcooked plot and run-time that drags the movie towards an uninspiring finale.
Fortunately several compelling set-pieces wet your appetite for further instalments of Riddick, particularly if this pans out into a new trilogy which sees him end up on his home planet of Furya, but it would have been more of a must-see had the film benefited from sharper editing, a tauter script and less overindulgence.
As it is, this will still be seen as a somewhat return to form for Riddick even though the much-maligned sequel was still arguably just as good.
Gavin Miller
Cast: Vin Diesel, Jordi Molla, Matt Nable, Katee Sackhoff, Dave Bautista, Karl Urban, Bokeem Woodbine, Raoul Trujillo, Conrad Pla, Nolan Gerard Funk, Danny Blanco Hall, Neil Napier, Noah Danby, Andreas Apergis, Keri Hilson
Running Time: 1hr 55mins
Director: David Twohy
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