Retrospectacle: Pitch Black & The Chronicles of Riddick

RETROSPECTACLE #2

PITCH BLACK (2000) & THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK (2004)

Vin Diesel has had something of a roller coaster ride when it comes to his career. He had a small role in a big movie (Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan), voiced the titular character in The Iron Giant, and big roles in smaller films (the starring role in his directorial feature Strays and 2000’s stock broker movie Boiler Room) before breaking out with 2000’s Pitch Black (although technically, both Boiler Room and Pitch Black were released on the same day). His role as the shiny-eyed convict Richard B. Riddick in that film stole the movie with such tremendous screen presence that the studio and filmmakers changed the ending so he would live in the end. Vin Diesel then skyrocketed to stardom in the blockbuster films The Fast and the Furious (2001) and the misleadingly titled xXx (2002) before stumbling with the sequel to Pitch Black, The Chronicles of Riddick;  a film that only made roughly half its production budget at the domestic box office upon release in the summer of 2004. He spent a few years in obscurity after a successful yet ill-advised dip into family films with The Pacifier, then brought himself back to prominence with a return to Fast and Furious franchise. It is his role as Riddick, however, that made me a fan.

Let’s get one thing out of the way; I love the character Riddick and the movies he is in. I love them in ways that make it possible for me to look past all problems they have (and they are many) and enjoy how fun these movies are. In fact, most of my admiration for both Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick rests squarely on the character of Riddick, how Vin Diesel plays him,  and how he fits into the universe set up by both movies.

Pitch Black follows the survivors of a space shuttle are stranded after crash landing on an unknown planet with a desert terrain. They have just arrived in the worst possible time, however, as an eclipse is just around the corner that will shroud the planet in complete darkness. When that happens, the planet’s native species, winged monsters who can only survive in the dark, come out of the ground and prey on whatever food is available. The group is picked off one by one until they must rely on the most unlikely of people, the mysterious convict being transported to prison who sparks fear in all who speak to him. This is Riddick, and because of his special eyes, he can see in the dark.

I did not catch Pitch Black in theaters. I was eight years old at the time and the film’s R-rating ensured that neither of my parents would take me to see it. I admittedly didn’t know much about the film upon its initial release either. It was not until I saw a trailer for The Chronicles of Riddick that my interest in this series was piqued. After seeing the trailer, I made sure Pitch Black was the first movie I rented next time I was in a video store. Luckily, I was able to secure a rental of it and was very much entertained by what I saw. The character of Riddick really stood out and the way the rest of the group treats him, with a mixture of fear and awe, is excellent. Plus, the question of who is the more villainous character, Riddick or the mercenary desperately trying to bring him in, was wonderfully done and felt realistic in a way that easily serves so that our sympathies lie within Riddick as we hope he will make the right choice in the end. Pitch Black didn’t exactly set the box office on fire but turned enough of a profit with home video sales and rentals to warrant a sequel.

The Chronicles of Riddick picks up five years after the events of Pitch Black. Riddick is on the run again but compelled to return to civilization when he discovers an old friend whose life he saved in the original film has placed a bounty on his head. The reason for this bounty, he soon finds, is so that he can come to the aid of the planet Helion Prime just as they are invaded by a race of half-dead warriors known as Necromongers. Riddick is revealed to be the last member of a species of humanoids known as Furyans and thus might be the only one capable of killing the lord of the Necromongers as stated by an old prophecy.

I went to see The Chronicles of Riddick on its opening weekend.  The film was edited upon initial release to achieve a desired PG-13 rating, which makes sense considering the film cost roughly five times as much as Pitch Black (I guess they were hoping Vin Diesel’s rising star as a result of The Fast and the Furious along with xXX would be enough to recoup the investment and justify spending over one-hundred million dollars to make a sequel to a movie that made fifty-three million dollars worldwide). Visually the film is amazing and I enjoyed it a lot. I bought the DVD copy of the extended edition when it came out and it is the only way to watch the movie. It includes several elements of the back story that were sorely missing from the theatrical cut, like further explanation into Riddick’s homework along with more fleshed out characterizations of supporting players. Purely from hind sight, it seems ridiculous to edit the movie down to achieve the PG-13 rating, as the movie was a flop upon its theatrical release anyway (apparently DVD sales over the years have been surprisingly strong enough to warrant another sequel, but we’ll get to that later) and even what was edited out was relatively tame as far as R-rated movies are concerned.

Overall, I find The Chronicles of Riddick to be inferior to Pitch Black, but I would be lying if I didn’t say I’ve seen the former more times than the latter. Pitch Black has a grittier feel to it that fits the character and his almost primitive nature. While positioning him as a reluctant savior of a planet does fit well within his morally ambiguous compass, the whole prophecy aspect doesn’t fit as a logical extension of the character and leads me to wonder whether it and the whole Necromonger army story-line should have been excised in favor of something else. I liked how we got to know more about Riddick and where he came from, but I think it could have been integrated into something else just as well. In fact, the parts of The Chronicles of Riddick that works best is the entire middle section of the film where Riddick is taken to a volcanic prison planet and must beat the odds to escape. This whole sequence is so great that it makes me a little disappointed that the whole movie wasn’t about this. It makes me think that the sequel to Pitch Black should have begun with Riddick being incarcerated and follow him as he plans a prison break. I realize this was the plot of the video game that came out around the same time as The Chronicles of Riddick, but it still feels like a missed opportunity and something I would have loved to see.

Both movies are well worth the time, despite neither being critically acclaimed. Their entertainment value is not be underestimated. If you have not seen any of them, I recommend giving them a shot.

*monetary figures taken from boxofficemojo.com

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