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Crispy
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Posted: October 10, 2009 at 6:14am
When the Riddick Trilogy was released, I'm sure a lot of people's first reaction was "Trilogy? I thought there was only two." That was mine anyway. As it turns out, this mysterious third movie was The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury, a thirty-five minute animated interqual that takes place right after the events of Pitch Black as Riddick, Imam and Jack are en route to New Mecca in their borrowed ship. Alarms sound as an immense ship closes is behind them, fires a grappling cable at them and reels them aboard. Even though Riddick's initial plan was to assume Johns' identity and announce Richard B. Riddick had died on the planet, the capturing ship's computers quickly identify his voice. Even more unfortunate for our anti-hero, this ship belongs to a woman named Chillingsworth, who has an army of mercs at her disposal and a penchant for displaying the frozen bodies of serial killers as art. Obviously, Riddick would be the ultimate piece for her collection, but naturally he has other ideas, and once again has to fight his way out to survive.
The best way to describe this "movie" would be pointless and over-the-top. Chillingsworth has an entire army of mercs frozen and waiting on her call (which goes against everything the two movies established about them), as well as a whole zoo of deadly creatures to torment Riddick. Unfortunately, there's nothing threatening about any of this. It's the same problem as any other prequel, we know our three main characters survive because they have to fight the Necromongers five years from now. However, even more irritating than that was the fact that our film makers obviously realized this, and started grasping at straws to fix this. For example, Toombs is in there just to have some weak connection to The Chronicles of Riddick, even though he doesn't do a damned thing. The only part of this story that actually matters is the last two minutes.
And sadly, not only is it barely relevant, but the animation just flat out sucks. Everyone's body is insanely out of proportion; hell, Riddick looked more simian than human, and had lips that took up about a third of his head. Not only that, but the action was awful. Watching our three main characters just run down the corridor was god awful, so you can imagine how awkward the fight scenes were. The movements were way too slow and there was absolutely nothing natural about their stride. It looked like something you'd see from a first year student in the field.
A pitiful shameful excuse to extend the series into a trilogy. What a cop-out. Even if you're a fan of Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick, I'd recommend skipping over this one if you do pick up that box set. 2/10.
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