Riddickulous

Remember Pitch Black? It was a terrific little pulpy sci-fi film that seemed to set Vin Diesel up as the next big thing and announced David Twohy as a director to watch. It never quite worked out that way for either of them. A misfire sequel seemed to stall both their careers and Vin seemed resigned to his fate, driving endless loops around the Fast and Furious race track. “Somewhere along the way I lost a step,” says Vin Diesel, in that trademarked gravelly voice. “I went and got sloppy.” He could be talking about a decade of bad choices.

It’s no wonder that after a decade both have returned to their roots with a Riddick character reboot. But this is where it all gets a bit meta. Where Pitch Black was a a pretty decent Alien rip off Riddick turns out to be a pretty lame Pitch Black rip off. There’s a hellish planet with some forgettable monsters that come out in the rain and some forgettable bounty hunters with forgettable dialogue apart from some horribly memorable misogyny.

Katee Sackhoff’s character Dahl seems to exist only to be called doll or whore, to be leered at, to be the butt of rape jokes and as a lesbian presents just another challenge for all this unbound masculinity in space. Yes she may end up on top of the outlaw in the end and may get to rescue him out of choice but it’s an unnecessary and distasteful misstep in this disappointing film that ultimately serves only to put the dick back in Riddick.