Up next is a creature feature that aimed a little higher—before Vin Diesel was going fast and furious (and for then twenty more sequels or so), he was lurking around in Pitch Black.
From Director David Twohy, the film’s setup is simple—in the future, a quasi-legal sleeper ship gets struck by meteors and is forced to come down on a backwater desert planet. Among our mains is the ship pilot Radha Mitchell, bounty hunter Cole Hauser transporting his captive Riddick (Diesel himself), and memorably the ever-dulcet Keith David as an Imam escorting some youths on a pilgrimage. There’s also Claudia Black as the most consistent Aussie to go into outer space settings.
Riddick starts off as another threat for our cosmic castaways to deal with as they navigate a scorching desert, hazards, and their own paranoia…before it turns out that the unusual orbital mechanics put the place into total eclipse, and that’s when swarms of flying predators arise into the sky. Their only hope, it seems, may be another predator.
Pitch Black wasn’t super high budget (the effects range from slightly shaky turn of the millennium CG to decent enough practical effects) but it’s that ambiguity that keeps it going. Riddick may be a killer, but there seems to be more lurking underneath (with one memorable speech about his belief in God…and how he absolutely hates him), with what may be his own twisted code of honor. You have the question of just what kind of deal with the devil someone might make if the situation is desperate—something that applies all too well to the real world with all its complexities.
Beyond that, Vin Diesel might mostly stick to being muscular and growly here, but with the script given, it works good enough—with a fun climax and tension over his character that works to the very end. That leaves this film as a fun enough creature flick that managed to strike a bit higher than usual…but then we get into the sequels!
This was followed up by Chronicles of Riddick, which when you watch it back to back is about as jarring as following Schindler’s List with Deadpool. Off the bat we’re suddenly exposited to about a legion of death warriors lead by a necro-lord who travelled into an under verse in order to become a ghost and argle blargle yargle!! Riddick himself goes from a somewhat capricious convict to a chosen one who’s actually the scion of some sort of warrior civilization, and also Judi Dench is some sort of wraith, or something! Yeah, Chronicles was fun in that sort of crazy sense, but it figures that fans of the original felt something was lost.
The Riddick series was followed by a set of actually fairly well done videogames for the time that perhaps leaned more into what was set up in the first one, as well as another film in 2013 noted for introducing David Bautista to Hollywood, even if it was basically a remake of the first one. There’s been talk of Vin Diesel coming back for one more, but if nothing else that leaves it as an…uneven, but surprisingly interesting set of films for what they are I guess!
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