Rated R

119 minutes.

Written by: David Twohy, Jim Wheat

Directed by: David Twohy

The End of a Bad Memory and the Beginning of a Trilogy

Riddick is, for me, the most important release of fall.  Seriously.  I mean it.  I worship at the temple of David Twohy’s “Pitch Black” and was forced to wait thirteen f*(&ing years for a true sequel.  For thirteen long years I waited.  I adopted a cat and grew a beard.  I waited.  I watched “Lost” and waited.  I bought seventeen Apple products and waited.  And I am here on my couch proud to say that I want to see “Riddick” again; it was worth the wait.

While “Riddick” ain’t “Pitch Black”, it’s a worthy sequel that dares to civilize and humanize the antihero without diluting him.  I would call it a minor victory a decade in the making.   Hopefully now we can have a string of annual “Riddick”s sequels, each with diminishing returns now until there is an inevitable Predator / Riddick / Muppets cross-over.  James Wan could direct it.  I’d pay to see that.

Joining the sun-seared planet of Riddick’s latest exile are Dave Bautista, fresh from putting J.R. through a table, and Starbuck as a putative lesbian bounty hunter who enjoys sniper rifles and hanging out in front of the mirror topless.  As one does.  Also: a foreign guy, an African wild dog, some scorpions, some nodes, some revenge, some humor, a few Necromongers and a Karl Urban cameo.

It’s everything I could have asked for and absolutely nothing more.  And that’s all I wanted.  In a year that revisits “Evil Dead” and “The Wizard of Oz” this is the one I was most worried about, the property I was most protective of.  So I liked it more than you will, maybe.  Probably.  But see it anyway.   It’s September.  Stop complaining.  Then take your girlfriend to see “The Spectacular Now” and shoe shopping.  And if she’s already broken up with you by then that’s okay, you have more time to see “Riddick” again.  Did I mention there are scorpions?

8/10

(worth losing a girlfriend)