The Chronicles of Riddick

Reviewed by RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * *)


In space you need dilithium crystals, a hyperdrive or at least rocket fuel. Diesel is never going to get you very far.

Vin Diesel may have been lauded as a new kind of action anti-hero when he arrived with The Fast and the Furious. And his show-stealing turn as intergalatic convict Richard B. Riddick in the simple but effective sci-fi thriller Pitch Black (also directed by Twohy) made this, its overblown sequel, possible.

But one of the film's odd problems is that his musclebound Han Solo with an anger management problem isn't actually the centre of this movie, even with his character's name in the title.

He, like most of the cast, gets caught up in its strained attempt to be allegorical, cosmic and - with much less than impressive digital effects - epic. Hence that title, which threatens another sequel.

"Chronicles" might sound unwieldy as a title but it's accurate. There are a big bunch of stories crammed into this space opera.

Not sure which one had me dozing off towards the end, but in this labyrinth is Star Wars meets Star Trek (especially the Borg bits) meets Macbeth meets Alien 3 (yes, the bad one) meets Lord of the Rings meets Matrix. Only with knife fights.

Riddick is drafted in by someone called Aereon (Dench) to fight for her planet's survival against the rampaging Necromongers who are pillaging the galaxy on a religious quest led by the Lord Marshal (Feore) who has had a life-changing experience having ventured into something called "The Underverse" (go to the Underchorus and turn left).

As well, there's treachery afoot with Lord Marshal's second-in command Varko (our own Urban, looking peeved enough to suggest he thought he had signed up for The Chronicles of Narnia) and his Lady Macbeth-like wife (Newton).

It might appear that Dench is slumming it. But she appears mostly as a hologram, which just goes to prove there ain't a dame like a nothing.

Along the way, it heads to a planet with a subterranean prison, beneath a surface which turns to lava every time the sun comes up - its sequences are the closest this comes to the simple chills of Pitch Black. And a couple of other characters from the earlier film are also revived.

The story's confusion is matched by its incoherent fast-cut action.

With those weird contact lenses, it may be that Diesel can't see what an odd mess of a movie he's in. The only redeeming factor of Chronicles is that it can be enjoyed for how brutally cumbersome both it and its star are. A true sense of the Riddick-ulous.

CAST: Vin Diesel, Judi Dench, Colm Feore, Karl Urban

DIRECTOR: David Twohy

RATING: R13 (violence)

RUNNING TIME: 120 mins

SCREENING: Village, Hoyts, Berkeley cinemas