‘Chronicles’ of the ‘Riddickulous’

Uncle Don

The good news is: There is an ending. The bad news is: There is a

beginning. The worst news is: There is a set-up to a sequel.

The great cynic Ambrose Bierce once wrote that he thought the

covers of a particular book were too far apart. If “The Chronicles of

Riddick” were a one-pager, its covers would still be too far apart.

Like summer camp mystery meat, “Riddick” is an amalgam of the

unholy and the questionable, “Riddick’s” inspirations being

“Battlestar Galactica,” “Star Wars,” “Battlefield Earth” and

especially the late, great, incredibly awful “Dune” (the David Lynch

version).

The protagonist, Richard Riddick, first appeared on the silver

screen in the 2000 release “Pitch Black.” This was an entertainingly

cheesy bit of hokum sci-fi about some doomed spaceship crash

survivors on a planet inhabited by bizarre and strange creatures,

both predatory and cannibalistic. (No, this was not the Democratic

National Convention.) Riddick saves a girl and a priest, dumps them

somewhere and disappears into the void.

Like Jack Nicholson, leering through the door in “The Shining,”

Riddick’s back in a sequel more properly entitled “The Chronicles of

Riddickulous.” Dressed as finely as any Fifth Street bum, Riddick has

had a bounty placed on his head and is chased by the usual assortment

of Bluto Butarskyish vagrants, miscreants and mercenaries attired in

random pieces of costumes cast off from other sci-fi flicks.

Floundering around the universe are the bad dudes called the

Necromongers. These garden variety storm troopers sport Don

King-inspired mullets and tail-finned body armor that would put a ’59

Caddy to shame. They’re not very nice people. They destroy

civilizations; they subjugate humans; they’re pasty, nasty and have

lousy table manners. Toting weapons swiped from palace guards in “The

Wizard of Oz,” their rule of law is: “You keep what you kill.” If

they’d only killed the movie. They can keep it.

While the dull and forgettable Vin Diesel is the star of this

“moronstrocity,” there’s one other meatball who deserves mention.

Judi Dench (yes, that one, the Oscar winner), a constipated

expression never leaving her face, floats around like an aged and

overweight “I Dream of Jeannie.” Whatever they paid her, it wasn’t

enough.

Sure enough, Riddick is captured by some bad guys who take him to

the planet Crematoria, so a reward can be paid for his capture. But

this is all part of his contrived grand plan. He’s really trying to

rescue the girl he saved in “Pitch Black,” who’s now imprisoned

there.

This chick is a piece of work. All attitude and aggression, she

ain’t gonna let the occasional fight to the death ruin her makeup.

Well-trained in the Sigourney Weaver “Alien” School of Butt-Kicking,

she takes no names, asks no quarter and actually is about as scary as

a ham sandwich.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the same prison, Riddick, attracting

trouble like fleas to a dog, ends up in more showdowns than an entire

season of “Gunsmoke.” Attacked and cornered by a couple of overgrown

Ritalin-deficient, T-rex-toothed armadillos, he takes off his shades,

makes nice with one of the little monsters and sends them on their

way to go eviscerate some other poor sap.

Riddick and this babe now have got to escape the planet, get to

the master spaceship, kill the leader and take over so the

Necromongers don’t destroy the universe and end the movie. After 15

minutes or so of bad special effects and ludicrous matte backgrounds,

they succeed in boarding this ship of fools.

Before the obligatory never-ending climatic battle, there’s got to

be the obligatory never-ending fight scenes. Riddick does his best

Jackie Chan impressions and flits through the air like the fighters

did in that other idiotic flick, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”

The camera goes in and out of focus, a little slo-mo here, a lotta

shaking there, some grunting and groaning and bleeding, and finally

he ends up in the center ring.

Surrounded by hundreds of yahoos dressed in body armor

evidentially swiped from a dollar store, it’s Riddick against the

evil Lord Marshal. Lord Marshal is faster than a liberal reaching for

your wallet and nastier than months-old meatloaf. Guess who wins that

battle? Guess who is now set up to star in a sequel? Guess who

produced this pathetic sack of suds?

Riddickulous.

* UNCLE DON reviews B-rated movies and cheesy musical acts for the

Daily Pilot. He can be reached by e-mail at reallybadwriting@aol.com.