David Twohy is on something of a roll. His last film, the psychological thriller A Perfect Getaway, arrived to little fanfare in 2009 but was one of the better recent examples of the genre and easily his most accomplished work to date. For his follow-up, Twohy logs another chapter in his Riddick franchise, a sci-fi saga that began with Pitch Black (2000), continued with The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), and returns once more with Riddick. It was a pragmatic decision. The franchise’s star, Vin Diesel, has never been more popular or influential, and brand familiarity is guaranteed to get at least a few butts in seats. But Twohy deserves material that better suits his growing stature as an unashamed genre stylist.
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Like A Perfect Getaway, Riddick is essentially a series of short films rolled into a single feature. During the first third of the film our titular antihero is stranded on a barren, monster-filled planet after being double-crossed by former allies. For roughly 30 minutes Diesel is alone, adjusting to the planet’s harsh climate, battling its many baddies, and contemplating his life to date. Eventually the perspective shifts from Riddick, whose survivalist cum existentialist musings suggested a Bradbury-esque take on The Naked Prey, to two rival groups of opportunistic bounty hunters who arrive on the planet, guns blazing. Riddick and “the mercs,” as he calls them, play cat and mouse until a roving storm unleashes the planet’s deadliest creatures. The perspective shifts once again as the film’s third sequence finds the former adversaries teaming up to survive.
This is intended to be funny. Twohy, in a script he wrote with Oliver Butcher and Stephen Cornwell, finds humor in such blunt platitudes. But he also finds distinct purpose. The film’s dialogue—everything from Diesel’s noirish voiceover to the digestible one-liners—is calibrated perfectly; it’s silly enough to be affable, but it’s also relatively sincere and completely plausible coming out of the mouths of his cast of roughnecks.
Directed by David Twohy
