MOVIES: The Chronicles of Riddick

Hunh?

Surely, that will be your immediate response as the credits roll on The Chronicles of Riddick. If not sooner.

In a series of seemingly unrelated video clips, the auteurs of this movie have created an interesting-looking mess. It's really just a spaceships and rayguns version of Conan the Barbarian with Vin Diesel playing the Gov's role. Diesel's Riddick is a likeable rogue, with a cute line or two and a penchant for stepping in when the children look to get hurt. But the over-the-top graphics and Diesel's charm hardly makes up for an incoherent script.

Riddick is a carry-over character from Pitch Black, a movie which played recently on TV here as a prelude to the release of the hardly-connected sequel. The other two survivors of Pitch Black, the Imam and young Jack the girl (if that confuses you, rent the DVD. Sorry about the spoiler) also appear in this flick.

The Imam renews ascquaintances with Riddick by helping put a bounty on his head and telling the mercs where to go to find him. Shortly after the unhappy reunion, the Imam's dead (saving his family) and Riddick's alone against the universe. Despite the plea to save the universe, Riddick decides its time to look up Jack after these long five years apart. According to MY math, that would make Jack 17 now.

Riddick finds Jack, now called Kira and looking all girly, on a prison planet where she's still trying to be a minor-league Riddick: nasty and a loner. Although she fights a good fight, in the end, she becomes the damsel in distress to lure Riddick into the final fight sequence where he tangles with the Big Nasty.

Any guess who sits on the throne in the movie's final shot? Sheesh, you TOO could be a screenwriter with THAT kind of insight into movie-making!

In some ways, this is a movie a lot like the first Lord of the Rings flick. It was great to look at in a movie theatre and somewhat diminished on a TV screen, so I recommended people go see it there. But like LOTR#1, the plot holes and faulty logic will set your teeth ajar.

Last comment about the eye candy. Look up slinky in the dictionary. There will be a picture of Thandie Newton from this movie. She plays the scheming wife of a would-be usurper with a litheness that makes dresses disappear.