The second installment of the Riddick series is an interesting addition to the first film: Pitch Black.

First, you have to understand that in the first film it’s a sci-fi horror flick, akin to Predator or Alien.

Second, it’s a very weird world that the Chronicles of Riddick find itself in. It’s more Fifth Element, then just purely futuristic story-telling.

The film is set five years after the events of Pitch Black. Riddick is hiding on a snow planet when mercs arrive to hunt him down. He’s quick to dispatch them, but he knows that something is amiss and fears that he’s been betrayed by Imam, the only survivor of the previous film, who knows where he is. Riddick travels to where Imam is and discovers, to his annoyance and chagrin, that he is being pulled into being the hero once more as a group of heretical and, honestly, insane soldiers attack the planet. On a side note: Jack, the young girl from the first film, has been imprisoned after running off to find Riddick (she was a touch obsessed with him).

Okay, so spoilers ahead.

My issue with this film… I think I’m going to say the directing. It’s very jumpy and sometimes whole plot points are kind of lost and forgotten. It just makes it a little unsatisfying because you end up being left with these open-ended questions – and not in a good way.

I do like the film. I saw a few reviews that called it cheesy, which I’m not really getting myself. I think those that say that should take a look at the pure cheddar of every single Marvel movie. This movie hardly has anything to compare it to. I mean, seriously. It’s about a criminal who is honestly an unrelenting murderer that only has a somewhat vague goal of protecting the kid from the previous movie and just kills the people who gets in his way. The information that he was actually destined to kill the bad guys in the first place is sort of like a ‘well, I planned on it, anyway’ thing for Riddick. He’s barely an anti-hero; I mean, in a lot of ways, he is a bad guy who just accidentally does good things sometimes.

Vin Diesel, again, is absolutely stellar. His fighting skills are probably even better in this film. He is such a muscular guy which makes it all the more surprising when he is so languid and elegant as he… kills people. His acting is also a little more open in this film. In Pitch Black, his expressions were very guarded and a little stony, but in Chronicles it’s much better. More relaxed.

I think what’s really good about this film is all the little pieces that come together. You have the power-hungry soldier and his wife wanting to overthrow their commander. You have the Elemental who sort of just acts like the calming storm to everything or an imp ensuring what she wants to happen happens (if you want to be honest). The Thor-like bad guys who just want everybody to die??? Prison escapes. I mean, it’s never boring.

My biggest complaint might be (MAJOR SPOILER) the death of Jack (Kyra) at the end of the film. The whole reason Riddick tried to do anything in the film was to protect her and then she dies at the end, making half of the film sort of obsolete since it was spent trying to find her, save her, protect her.