Just had fun watching TCOR and am pretty happy about it. Good action, great visual stuff. A worthy successor to Pitch Black, though the two films are hardly related. Vin Diesel does a good and convincing job at playing an action antihero. As usual, Judy Dench adds to the film, even though her role is small here. The story is pure pulp SF and is short and predictable but is refreshingly dark and (mostly) unsentimental. It actually also has some interesting bits and nice side stories as a (smallish) bonus.

Bits and pieces have been copied from Dune, without the film being a Dune copy. Compared to Dune, TCOR has more action and fewer Lynch oddities & boring bits. In my book, both films are good, about equally so.Reading some of the other reviews, it seems that people are fairly polarized in their opinions of this film. Like most pulp science fiction, it takes a different sort of suspension of belief from that which makes usual films work.

However, the action makes it a fair bit easier, and I found it a lot more engrossing and convincing than any of the five (ridiculous but entertaining) Star Wars films, the uniformly unwatchable Star Trek stuff, or, for that matter, most blockbusting light entertainments. But that is just me. If you hate Dune, exaggerated action scenes, or (minor) plot inconsistencies, then you probably won't like this film. Otherwise, chances are good that you will.

 

 

 

I just saw this film and I really enjoyed it. Sure, it is not the same a "Pitch Black" which I think was also a good film in its own right. "Chronicles of Riddick" is a big budget summer blockbuster film and on that level it succeeds.Sure it is silly in parts but we are not discussing a project based upon a Pulitzer Prize winning novel. It is action packed science fiction. I think Riddick DID stay true to the character he played in "Pitch Black". While the Riddick in that film was a brutal, self-centered opportunist, I think we see by the end of that film that he had good characteristics as well.

The Riddick in this film is still brutal, self-centered and opportunistic (see the full size statue of Riddick shown during the end credits) but we see more of the decent aspects of his character as well. The action scenes in this film were great! I especially enjoyed the "topside" chase scene on Cremetoria. And Thandie Newton was a really good "baddie"!

 

The thing that pleased me the most was that there were people of color in central key roles who were not stereotypes. The main hero was not the buff blue-eyed white man out to save humanity that we have been feed by Hollywood. And the female characters seemed to have more sense at times than the male characters. Thandie Newton's character had a much better grasp of court politics than her husband and Dame Judith's character wasn't just the stereotypical "wise mystical being", she was politically savvy as well.

 

The only problem I had with the film was the lack of development for Linus Roche's character. I just did not believe his actions toward the end of the film. But, that is trivial.All in all, it was a good way to spend about an hour forty five on a Saturday evening!

 

 

It was very refreshing to watch a science fiction movie with a great story and fantastic acting.I enjoyed Vin Diesel' s'performance as Riddick. He made the movie with his one-liners. Casting was very good. Special effects were incredible. I would give it 9 out of 10 stars. I hope there is a sequel to follow this movie. There appeared to be a time span between Pitch Black and Chronicles of Riddick but they bridged the gap quite well. A prequel to Pitch Blackwould help to establish who Riddick is and where he came from. This movie definitely took me to a place few science fiction movies do now days. I predict that Riddick will be entertaining us with more movies in the future.