Riddick Reviews
Top CriticDavid Twohy's film is scarcely original, but the sheer survivalist grind of our hero, against comical odds, becomes appealingly mad ...
A vibrant stylistic mishmash that works brilliantly in chunks but is ultimately too scattered to sustain any cohesion.
Riddick, an alternately kick-ass and clumsy piece of sci-fi claptrap that puts its empty head down and gets the job done.
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| Original Score: 2/4
Fans of lean, mean, testosterone-steeped sci-fi action are likely to find Riddick kind of a blast, however -- even though it offers few surprises.
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| Original Score: 3/4
The movie's cheap but has a sense of humor, and it's smart enough to let Riddick just get back to being a badass.
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| Original Score: 2/4
Much of the film is over-the-top, but that won't be a surprise to those who saw the previous two installments. Diesel is in fine form, growling his lines and being the most menacing person on screen even when he's in chains.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Twohy is trying to do something with his original character. It's just not clear what that something is anymore. Maybe it's time this franchise fades to black for good.
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| Original Score: C-
A modestly budgeted bone Universal Pictures threw at Diesel so he would keep starring in "Fast and Furious" pictures. Those movies are bank; "Riddick" is rank.
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| Original Score: 1/4
The dark palette and extreme close-ups turn every fight into a muddy blur; the staging, which should feel claustrophobic, is too often set in vast (and unconvincing) landscapes.
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| Original Score: 1.5/4
The movie jogs along nicely without ever getting a case of the stupids; far from being a bloated "John Carter," it's just a pared-down yarn of survival: "Die Hard" on a planet.
In lieu of blockbuster spectacle, Twohy spins wittily choreographed scenes of small-scale carnage, most of it initiated by Riddick himself.
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| Original Score: 3/4
"Riddick" can be cheesy and silly, not to mention excessively violent, but it's also fun.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
Move along, there's nothing to see and no one to root for in this murky franchise reboot.
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| Original Score: 1/4
The dust churns, the clouds gather, the bullets fly, the men fall. The Diesel rises.
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| Original Score: 3.5/5
The first (and one hopes the last) film to borrow heavily from both Alien and Old Yeller.
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| Original Score: 2/4
It's B-grade cinema made with A-level intelligence and imagination -- skillfully directed, surprisingly well acted and gratifyingly preposterous.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
Riddick's at his most fun when the pressure's on, and he retreats to plan something special for his new visitors. All the build-up pays off with tense showdowns in the dark, thrilling restraint and ominous suggestion giving way to slasher gore.
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| Original Score: 3/5
As a creature feature, Riddick isn't half bad, though it's far from truly good.
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| Original Score: 2/4
There's no expiration date for movie characters. But there are certainly some who, if they went missing, we'd never even notice.
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| Original Score: 1/5
This is not one of those Johnny-come-lately sequels preoccupied with getting a new audience up to speed on where the story was. It's about living in the moment, in the now, and killing in the now.
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| Original Score: 3/4
We must pan for scraps of pleasure -- a scene where Diesel poses naked on a cliff like a truck stop coyote, the way half of his attacks look like rhythmic gymnastics
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| Original Score: C
The CGI-created landscape is impressively rendered and detailed, there are loads of cool gadgetry and, of course, plenty of action and "ghosting" - i.e. killing.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
Watching this see-in-the-dark muscleman brooding against gorgeous otherworldly vistas, all while crafting pointy homemade weapons and befriending a scene-stealing CGI canine (no joke), is a sci-fi aficionado's delight.
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| Original Score: 3/5
''Sloppy'' is a kind word, actually, for the ridiculously clumsy dialogue in ''Riddick,'' the third and latest installment of the sci-fi saga.
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| Original Score: 1.5/4
Twohy succeeds in staging moments both tense and funny, but they're fewer and farther between than one would hope, and the dialogue is served up with a heaping helping of cheese, especially when delivered in Diesel's low-frequency growl.
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| Original Score: C+
Faithful to the template if not the spirit of previous installments, this flabby second sequel barely manages to advance Riddick's considerable personal mythology.
An improbable but very enjoyable sequel that recaptures much of the stripped-down intensity of Diesel and director David Twohy's franchise starter "Pitch Black."
A hybrid of D&D adventuring, ;Pitch Black'-style close quarters mayhem, and a dash of 'Heavy Metal' for spice.
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| Original Score: 6.4/10
It's flavourless: the aliens are unscary and easily despatched, Vin's too silent to be interesting, and the other characters are either dull or offensive.
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| Original Score: 2/5
If you were to make a comedy about an actor who makes cheesy sci-fi action movies, and you needed a hilarious clip of his work that underscored the awfulness of his output, just about any 30-second segment of Riddick would do the trick.
