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David Twohy's The Chronicles of Riddick is an ambitious, yet terribly flawed step toward an imaginative series that was made to break the boundaries of archetypical good and evil legends. Sadly, with dialogue filled with "Necromongers" and "Underverses," the film's heavy-handed sci-fi approach will alienate more than entertain. Whether they were inspired or not, the filmmakers made a movie that doesn't play to the audience as much as them. Hardcore intergalactic science fiction isn't an easy sell in the world of cinema -- its attention to detail and complicated plotting make it hard for popcorn-lovers to just dive into. The money is definitely on the screen, but you need more than a grandiose effects shot every ten minutes to hold your viewers' attention. If the precursor Pitch Black's visuals were used to punch up the frantic drama of the situation, here they're used as expensive set dressing -- and not really all that hot to begin with! Chalk it up to a kind of "been-there-done-that" attitude, but never does the scale of the film create the sense of awe that it needs to actually work. The extravagant sets and costumes are indeed nice to look at, but they, too, fail to add anything new to the game -- they're just there. The pacing is fairly decent, but really, couldn't everyone have gone without the cut-rate Macbeth subplot? It would also help if the action weren't so lousy. Poorly staged and frantically edited, each fight scene is the big-screen equivalent of being slapped around by a big, loud bully.

It's all too bad, because there's plenty of talent running around (the slinky Thandie Newton and Karl Urban's Mad Max haircut excluded), it's just that their characters are far too vague, lacking the depth that would truly make them stand out. The Riddick character has his moments, and Vin Diesel was definitely made for the role, but the way his arc has evolved screams cliché and is more than a little forced. Additionally, carry-over characters from Pitch Black are either tragically under-used or so essential to the story that you wonder what made them so important to the unfeeling Riddick in the first place. Twohy has said numerous times that this film is more about bad guys fighting evil guys, though in fact, he did the opposite and effectively killed the "anti" in Diesel with this one. The finale does pit Riddick in such a spot that you need a sequel just so that it does not end there, but, given the marketing push during the release (including the game and the prequel DVD), there's hardly a drought in the various ways this story can carry on. Judging by this, less could very well mean more for Twohy -- a stylish and innovative storyteller whose work is better than this.