I saw Pitch Black in 2000, and quite frankly I was amazed. What I found truly significant about that film was the build-up. Pitch Black spent somewhere around an hour in heavy character development before unleashing the monsters. By the time you saw serious action, you already had feelings towards each character, you cared whether they lived or died, you could relate.

In sharp juxtaposition, Riddick offers none of that. What makes this contrast so devastatingly drastic is that the stories consistently parallel one another. If we step back and view them side by side, we have the same formula: tremendous hardship occurs, people hunt Riddick/ character development, darkness falls and monsters ensue, run for fuel cells, escape. This formula worked well for Pitch Black for several reasons: the acting was well above average, the characters (and their subsequent actions) were plausible, the CG was pretty state-of-the-art at the time, and the story, although not untold, was given a novel approach.

What we're faced with in Riddick is one tired cliché after another. I feel like we spent a large portion of the movie either watching Riddick heal himself, or converse with his dog. As was mentioned in other reviews, the monster was spoiled within the first few minutes of the movie. By the time you get to the characters, you've almost had enough. Once Santana arrives you may think that things will speed/shape up, at least development-wise. Sure he works well as a comic relief, but I'm sorry to say that significant development will not be had. Santana, who is immediately identified as a psychopath, simply continues in that vein, offering no substance to the role other than what is plainly superficial. What's more is that each character follows in much the same way. They come into the scene, state who and what they are, and that is as much character development as you'll get.

I'm not sure if I needed to state this explicitly or whether it was implied in my comments on development, but the script was drab and uninteresting. Having characters that were sub-par only made the futility of each uttered word more obvious. You would find a chuckle here and there, but most of the time you'd find yourself thinking "I've heard that line a dozen times before", or, as I was, thinking the lines that were about to be said.

It's as if, in this movie, the director/writers were intent upon building Riddick's character solely. This put them at a huge disadvantage. Riddick's character alone was never enough to drive a movie, as he's an anti-hero. Take the two proceeding movies: in Pitch Black what was ultimately fascinating was Riddick's interaction between Johns, Fry, and Imam; in CoR, his interaction between Vaako, Toombs, Aerion, and the slew of other characters.

The bottom line is that this movie suffers dearly from an unoriginal story, poor character development, deplorable writing, and very little suspense, basically all the things that made the first two, especially Pitch Black, enjoyable. I give it 6 out of 10 because I'm a fan of the series and was happy just to see a progression, even if it wasn't, in my opinion, the best direction. My hopes rest in this series furthering itself beyond this travesty of cinema and the next (movie) being more worthy of its predecessors than this bland rehash.

Back to real action movie and R rating.

The film is exactly as it should be, brutal, bloody and with a dose of humor. Again it's action on a desert planet, fighting monsters and surviving, but this time without some of the irritating characters we saw in the first part of the saga (Pitch Black).

The film is well directed, the cinematography is good, the cast is not bad, the action scenes are great.

The cinematography is good, the film is visually interesting, and some of the scenes are spectacular. The atmosphere is tense, and yet with a dose of dark humor.

The extended version of the film is more complete than the theatrical version, contains more action and fills in some gaps. Vin Diesel is good in the role of Riddick, but the other characters are just as fun and interesting.

A film that wants to entertain the viewer and definitely succeeds at it.

Brutal, dark and entertaining.

Unsurprisingly reactions to this, the third outing for Vin Diesel's sci-fi based anti-hero, has been very mixed. In truth it's hardly a great film of the "must see" kind, and it does in fact cleave very close to Pitch Black, the first and most superior of the Riddick trilogy. However, there's a whole bunch of science fiction fun to be had here.

Plot has Riddick left for dead on a inhospitable planet, where he finds himself up against some alien creatures. His only hope of getting off the planet is to bring notice of his whereabouts, which brings two ships to where he is. Both with crews who have differing reasons for wanting to capture the enigmatic convict...

And thus we get a beautifully filmed sci-fier that features beasties of both the human and alien kind. Action and moody histrionics are never far away, and Diesel is wonderfully muscular, macho, course and scary. Some of the CGI is weak, and naturally much of the film's coincidences and contrivances have to be forgiven if one wants a popcorn and beer good time of it. So the requisite here is to chill out and enjoy me thinks! 7/10