Riddick

The original Riddick adventure, 2000’s ‘Pitch Black’, was a serviceable ‘Alien’ clone, as Vin Diesel’s muscular convict held off an army of darkness-loving beasties with only the galaxy’s most gravelly voice as his weapon. ‘The Chronicles of Riddick’ (2004) was a misfire, placing our hero at the centre of a tedious ‘Dune’-like intergalactic conflict. Now, unheralded, comes ‘Riddick’, a return to the Vin-kills-slimy-things template of the first movie. In parts it’s almost a remake, the only difference being that these nasties come out in the rain, rather than the dark. There’s a whole lot of previously-on-‘Riddick’ backstory to get through – a gang of bald chaps with names like Lord Siberius Vaako tried to bump him off, apparently – before we reach the meat of the story. When we do, it’s flavourless: the aliens are unscary and easily despatched, Vin’s too silent to be interesting, and the other characters – a gang of bounty hunters on Riddick’s trail – are either dull or offensive: Katee Sackhoff’s lesbian character appears to exist purely so the male characters can threaten to rape her. Nice.