Riddick (2013), R, 3 stars

Vin Diesel as Riddick.

I don't remember Pitch Black or The Chronicles of Riddick, but I do recall the latter being awful and forgettable. Basically, Universal Pictures likes Vin Diesel a lot due to the success of the Fast and Furious franchise. So, why not make another "Riddick" movie set five years later? Universal has been taking a lot of risks this year and it's really paying off with Fast and Furious 6 and Despicable Me 2 and others. I have to confess that I was not looking forward to seeing this and when I watched it, I thought it looks pretty dumb, but granted, it is just a fun, illogical guilty pleasure.

Riddick (Vin Diesel) is stranded on a planet for five years after the events of the last movie and has repaired his badly injured leg. He goes into hibernation and experiences a state-like dream when one of the topics is returning home to Furya. In that sequence, it reveals how he was injured and buried in the rubble where he emerges from on the isolated planet.

When he wakes up from his hibernation, he goes to some grasslands and build up a little fortress for himself with venom from scorpions and he trains a dog-like creature. I cannot aptly describe the material he covered with in this movie, it looks a little too futuristic and campy.

Later, he goes into a deserted mercenary station and activates an emergency beacon making the two ships who arrive aware of the beacon. A group of bounty hunters emerge from their ship and are led by Santana (No, not the musician, but Jordi Molla.). An equipped team of mercenaries arrive and are led by Boss Johns (Matt Nable). However, they notice a little note to leave and a fight ensues resulting in deaths and an "agreement". However, a disagreement comes forward and everything goes wrong and the film gets a bit interesting.

Ok, this whole summary is a bit implausible and trite, right? Well, yeah. But, the movie showing what is going on is better. The film shows that there is hope in a franchise of Riddick where the filmmakers do not focus so much on the special effects and does not show off so much awesome qualities with the weapons and action. It is sci-fi action with relevance and entertainment, and not boredom like its predecessor.

Maybe, another successful turn is its rating. This movie is rated R, so they just throw in everything and not be safe. Vin Diesel is in his comfort zone with this genre, but still mumbles some dialogue. I did like Katee Sackhoff as Dahl. She has some presence on screen.

However, the movie provides some B-level entertainment with a little A-level action and A-level intelligence. This proved that any movie can surprise you even if an advertisement or trailer makes the project look bad for the studio and filmmakers. Again, this movie is a fun guilty pleasure. It's a movie that just goes wacky with CGI and action and special effects, but in the end, the story served its purpose into why this project existed in the first place. So, a nice surprise.

***