I went over to a good friend of mine’s house last night, and after we ate dinner, we watched Chronicles of Riddick, a movie that is a few years old, but that I had not seen before.
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Vin Diesel is the main character, playing ultra-tough-part-alien guy Riddick, who is a virtually unkillable loner type. I missed the first 15 minutes or so, but basically the worlds they characters live in are post-apocalyptic and barren, kind of like the Mad Max movies. The evil dudes are called the Necromongers, and true to their name, are quite macabre and nasty. The Necromongers are spreading through the universe, conquering worlds and “converting” people. The way they convert people is by telling them “convert or die (gruesomely by having your soul taken from your body)”, so they win lots of converts. Riddick isn’t impressed by them and succeeds in killing a few of their men before being captured himself by bounty hunters who want to sell him for a profit.
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There is some political intrigue within the Necromongers’ government where a high ranking commander, played by the same actor who portrayed Eomer of Rohan in the Lord of the Rings, is being encouraged to usurp the throne from the current king. Eomer goes to the hellish planet where the bounty hunters have taken Riddick, a planet that has raging firestorms everytime the sun comes up because it is so close to it. Riddick escapes from the inept bounty hunters and the other denizens of the prison planet and leads a small group to escape the planet, racing ahead of the sun rise. He meets up and fights Eomer, ultimately to a stalemate, but then is helped by a Necromonger that is part alien like Riddick.
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The climax takes place on the Necromongers home ship. Riddick attacks the king of the Necromongers, who can move like lightning kind of like Johnny Cage from the game Mortal Kombat (Shadow Kick). Riddick is getting beat up badly and is about to die when his girlfriend comes in and stabs the king in the back. The king kills her but then Eomer sees his chance to finish off the king. Eomer swings his axe to lop off the king’s head, but the king does a shadow dodge move to avoid the blow. Fortunately, Riddick was watching for this, and as soon as the king rematerializes, Riddick kills him, becoming the new king of the Necromongers!
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The dialogue in the movie is mondo-cheesy, with Riddick spewing out every over-the-top “I’m a bad dude, don’t mess with me” line you can imagine. Overall, I give it 5 of 10 stars.