CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK, THE - HD DVD review

I waited anxiously for four years for the sequel of the low budget sleeper hit "Pitch Black." The character of Richard B. Riddick was one of the most original and entertaining characters in many years and it seemed like the sky was the limit for the Vin Diesel star vehicle. There was a rumor of a trilogy. Would it be a full trilogy following "Pitch Black" or was "Pitch Black" the first of the trilogy? I wanted to see more Riddick and whether it was two or three films, it would not be quite enough. After the sequel doubled its budget domestically and did incredibly well on home video, "The Chronicles of Riddick" was the highly marketed and high budget sequel that was to be one of the big films of the year. Riddick arrived back on the big screen and disappointed not only the studio executives responsible for the film, but disappointed this once-eager movie-goer.

"The Chronicles of Riddick" completely changed the direction and focus of the franchise. Whereas the first film featured Riddick helping a very small group of people against monsters and worked well as both a horror film and a science-fiction film, the sequel took the small role that Riddick had in the universe and quickly made him the most important man in the universe. Riddick went from being a dangerous character who was capable of doing some good if it were in his best interest to becoming a prodigal son who would find himself in a position to save the entire universe and do so for more than just saving his own hide. Riddick became a superhero who would work himself out of incredible situations and instead of being a dangerous person instinctively getting out of situations, Riddick was now something completely different.

Big budget dollars and a desire to quickly launch the Riddick character into the stratosphere and compete with the big boys is where "The Chronicles of Riddick" lost its focus and went from being an engaging horror/science-fiction film that was a great character study on the main character into becoming the overblown and bloated popcorn film that had a budget five times greater than the original, but didn't manage to even double the box-office take. "The Chronicles of Riddick" isn't necessarily a bad film and I admit that it has grown on me after repeated viewings to the point where I actually enjoy the film for its entertainment value. However, I found the better sequel to be the Universal Games "Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay." The game featured a Riddick that more matched the character of the original film and found himself once again doing what was required to save his own skin. He was working towards his own intentions and not working his way into the throne of the most vicious horde in the universe.

The horde I mention is called the Necromongers. Yes, the name of the religious sect bent on complete destruction and assimilation of the universe should have keyed me early on that "The Chronicles of Riddick" would be a bit of a disappointment. The Necromongers are led by the Lord Marshal (Colm Feore), a man who is supposedly half alive and half dead. He can do a few pretty nifty tricks involving out of body experiences. Riddick has a price put upon his head by Imam (Keith David) to be brought to Helion Prime. The mercenary bounty hunter Toombs (Nick Chinlund) fails in recovering Riddick, but succeeds in giving Riddick a means to head to Helion Prime and personally remove the price from his head. Of course, the Necromongers are on their way to destroy the planet and Riddick is first introduced to the horde he will eventually set out to defeat.

A few small attempts at plot twists and it is revealed that Riddick's people were wiped out by the Necromongers and that Riddick is part of a prophecy that details the only way the Lord Marshal and the Necromongers can be destroyed. Before reluctantly working towards completing the prophecy, Riddick is taken to a prison planet and meets back up with Kyra (Alexa Davalos), the girl he saved in "Pitch Black." The Necromongers hunt down Riddick on the prison planet and a few more plot twists occur that leaves Riddick on the hunt to destroy the Lord Marshal, complete his prophecy and end up in a position at the end of the film that totally destroys all semblance of the great character in the original film. Karl Urban, Thandie Newton and Judi Dench are some familiar names that add to the cast.

"The Chronicles of Riddick" feels more like a modern day "Flash Gordon" than it does a sequel to "Pitch Black." Everything about the film is about wowing the audience. Big explosions, incredible effects and grand battle sequences. They story seems to have been procured solely for the reason of finding the biggest and grandest situation for our hero to find himself in. The films sets are gigantic and highly detailed. They are a far cry from the claustrophobic or desolate sets of the first film. Much of the first film took place in the darkness where Riddick's strange eyes could be put to good use. Here, we find a few sequences where the lighting goes out, but only to show how fast and vicious Riddick can kill. Or, it could be said the lights go out to save a few dollars showing some potentially good action scenes because too much money was spent already.

Still, even with considering the ill conceived storyline that does not fit the Riddick character, it is hard to not enjoy the film. There are a ton of wonderful effects, the action is good and Vin Diesel is still quite entertaining in the main role. Many scenes that do not hold up plot wise or came across as silly are can be considered very good eye candy. Directory David Twohy and the writing tandem of the Wheat brothers may have betrayed their wonderful character after Hollywood dumped a ton of money on their laps for a sequel, but they still did not make an awful film. They just made a film that does not sit neatly on the shelf behind its older sibling. Had "The Chronicles of Riddick" been created without "Pitch Black" ever existing, I admit that my feelings on this film would be better. I'd be calling it a great film with a great action hero that brings back the fun in science fiction. Now, I can only say it is a fun film with a character that has been tarnished in order to deliver the most visual splendor possible with as much action as possible.

Video

If you really want somebody to look at you in pure adulation over your pushing edge technology HD-DVD, then you don't want to give a damn about anything I have said up to this point. Grab your thirty dollars, get your car keys and move as fast as you can to a video store (I'm not sure if I can recommend one here on this site, but the disc is easy enough to find) and buy this disk. For the purpose of showing of HD-DVD, this IS the movie you want to watch. Look nowhere else. "Phantom of the Opera" may look great, but not this great. The level of detail in this picture is spectacular when compared to the standard definition DVD. I remember sitting back on night in March of 1997 and showing my best friend my well-rehearsed VHS and LaserDisc comparison using Tim Burton's "Batman." He gave me a response stating how he had seen this before a few times and wondered why I was bothering showing it to him. I then reset the position on both the VHS tape and swapped out the LaserDisc for something he referred to as a CD. He was blown away by the DVD-VHS comparison (Unfortunately, my main LaserDisc player was unable to function well enough to do a LD-DVD comparison). I got the same response from him when I did an A-B comparison between this title and the SD-DVD release. Anybody want to send me a VHS copy of "The Chronicles of Riddick" to really blow him away?

"The Chronicles of Riddick" is presented in 2.40:1 widescreen. I cannot praise the visual splendor of this film enough. It really is a sight to see. The bright and perfectly contrasted colors feel almost three dimensional with the high level of detail present in the transfer. Textures look so real, you want to reach out and touch them. Flesh tones are perfectly rendered. The ice planet seen early in the film looks frigid. The prison planet looks so warm, you almost feel the need to turn up the air conditioner. The black scenes are perfectly rendered and show no visual flaws. Source materials are also of top notch quality. As I said in the main part of this review, "The Chronicles of Riddick" is a true visual tour de force. HD-DVD helps make "The Chronicles of Riddick" an better film just by looking so damn good.

Audio

With a bigger budget come more spectacular sound effects and louder explosions. There are not many silent moments during "The Chronicles of Riddick." There were in "Pitch Black," but you are not going to find them here. If there was an opportunity to blow something up or shoot a heavy barrage of gunfire, then the filmmakers took that opportunity. I still feel they created the script for the sole purpose of having as many loud and stunning scenes as they could. The soundtrack is aggressive and it delivers. Ambient effects are prevalent through the entire time. Sound comes from every direction at every moment of the film. Graeme Revell's musical score is loud, but does not drown out any action. It adds to scenes nicely and though it does not have the impact of a John Williams score, it does nicely. It sounds just as good as the effects. The film sounds as impressive as it looks.

The Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 soundtrack is an improvement over the standard definition release, but it is not as dramatic an improvement as the visual presentation. The soundtrack features cleaner and tighter bass. My peer and fellow reviewer for this site, John J. Puccio, pointed out to me the other week how HD-DVD was not as boomy through the analog connections as it was the digital output and this was something I listened for as I compared the optical output stream to the six analog wires. I have to agree and "The Chronicles of Riddick" shows the same variance between the outputs. The DD+ 5.1 mix truly does sound fuller, cleaner and the bass output is tighter. Richard B. Riddick is not a man of many words, but when he does speak, the soundtrack does an admirable job of delivering his words to thy ears. Francais and Espanol 5.1 Dolby Digital Plus soundtracks are provided as well as an the English DTS 5.1 mix carried over the digital outputs.

Extras

One thing I have enjoyed greatly in the early days of HD-DVD is the wonderful amount of supplements that are typically present on the releases. Out of my fifteen releases, almost every disc has something to offer and only "Happy Gilmore" and "Full Metal Jacket" feel lacking. "The Chronicles of Riddick" continues the trend of supplying the best supplements previously available and is a nice package. Before writing this review, we had a very nice discussion between the readers and the reviewers of this site. I am typically very hard on my scoring of supplements and really didn't realize how hard I was. I had only given out one top score so far. Ouch. I want to say now that "The Chronicles of Riddick" has a plethora of nice features and they are entertaining. You have to pay about thirty dollars for this DVD. For that price, you get the full director's cut of the film and you get a wealth of value added content. This is a very good deal and when you look at this value-wise as opposed to Blu-Ray, you realize that the inclusion of these supplements is very nice indeed.

In addition to the film being the Unrated Director's Cut, which I consider to be a value-added bonus, there is a wall of text describing the supplements on the shiny packaging. The longest and most substantial of these supplements is the Feature Commentary with writer-director David Twohy and actors Karl Urban and Alexa Davalos. Much of the commentary is run by Twohy and there is a lot of discussion about the making of the film, what worked, what didn't and certainly praise for Vin Diesel. An Introduction by David Twohy describes how there may be jumps in the film as this is a director's cut. I don't know about you, but Twohy makes me uncomfortable, and this ‘special introduction' is anything but.

Going down the list on the standard Universal template, next up is the Virtual Guide to The Chronicles of Riddick. This is a nifty little interactive supplement that gives you lots of information on the film. It provides some backstory on locations and characters. You can view them separately or use "Play All." It runs for about eight minutes. At times it feels a little cheesy, but it is fun. One more click down on the remote and you get Toombs' Chase Log. This is another video-gamey feature that chronicles the eighteen days where Toombs' chases down Riddick. It is a ‘Captain's Log' of sort. Toombs' likes to curse and he is way over the top. Again, cheesy, but fun. It does provide a little backstory on Toombs and his tracking down of Riddick.

Visual Effects Revealed is a short five minute look at the films wonderful special effects. Twohy is back in this and he still makes me feel uncomfortable. I find it hard to believe he was the man behind "Pitch Black." The feature felt way too short for the amount of great looking effects in the film. Oddly, you get even more backstory in this supplement. The next stop on the supplemental tour delivers us the Vin Diesel Guided Tour. I think Vin is great and when you read my "Pitch Black" review, you get a better feeling on my opinion of the actor. Sadly, this feature runs for only three minutes and then, Vin is gone. You get the guy for a supplement and it is a simple three minute walk through the set. Vin is really personable and a good host. Just too damn short.

I love deleted scenes and you can watch them with Twohy turned on or off. There are eight minutes of scenes present here. They are played in a singular clump and you cannot select them individually. The scenes are not complete and even though they would add a bit to the film, they are certainly unnecessary. The Creation of New Mecca is the next entry. Running at just over eleven minutes, this is another electronic press kit style of feature. Twohy mentions making more films in this supplement. This provides hope. Twohy, Diesel and others lend their time to this little bit. Riddick Rises is one of the longest of the EPK supplements and goes very deep into the Riddick character. There is a lot of Vin Diesel time here and you get more insight into the wonderful character and hope that he can be redeemed in the future. The final supplement is Keep What You Kill. This IS the longest supplement and it runs at only seventeen minutes. The Necromongers and the underverse is the topic of discussion here. I still don't like the Necromongers after watching this and I've decided that Twohy makes me uncomfortable because he really is one.

The HD-DVD is the director's cut. I love extended editions and usually prefer the director's original vision. I feel that "The Chronicles of Riddick" may actually get more silly with Twohy's inclusions. Riddick containing this powerful inner force just doesn't sit well with me. Still, the film's pace is improved and some of the inclusions made are nice. The commentary is nice, but where is Vin? There are no HD-DVD specific features. All of the included supplements are ports presented in 480i/p. The EPK style supplements run for roughly about an hour. This isn't too bad. There is a nice number of them, but nothing really substantial. My favorite bit was Vin's tour, but that was only three minutes. Commentary track, director's cut, forty-five minutes of decent supplements and maybe fifteen minutes of really good stuff; I feel that "The Chronicles of Riddick" is about a six on the scale.

Parting Thoughts

It has taken a bit of time, but "The Chronicles of Riddick" has slowly become a film I can enjoy. I agree that it is entertaining and can be a load of fun. It certainly looks and sounds impressive. The big budget just went to the filmmaker's egos or heads. Maybe this is their original vision, but I loved Riddick for the anti-hero character he was and how he overcame more scaled situations. The scope of "The Chronicles of Riddick" was just too overblown. As I mentioned in my main review, the Xbox video game was a better sequel. As far as an HD-DVD title goes, "The Chronicles of Riddick" is by far the most impressive looking release. It sounds very good, but the image quality is really what grabs you. I know that HD-DVD is going to just get better looking, but for now, this looks truly next-gen for home video. I'm certainly happy to see all of the supplements, but they are typical EPK-style bits and the best supplement runs for only three minutes. It is easy to recommend this title, because it is currently the title to show of your system and perhaps the most ‘fun' in a title out there for the fledgling format.