Les chroniques de Riddick: Dark Fury

This is not live action, but rather an Anime edition of the time in between Pitch Black and the Chronicles of Riddick. If you haven't seen it, I won't spoil it for you, but it makes a fine attempt to detail what happened to "Jack" between the time Riddick leaves to the time of Riddick's re-emergence.

I'm not into Anime, personally, so I had to devote some extra concentration to this in order to glean the story from it, but those around me who do enjoy Anime did comment on how well it was done. I can, however, attest to the quality of the story, which was excellent, though I do hope that this does not portent what's coming in the next installment. I hope it's live action.

It rates a 7.8/10 from...

the Fiend :.

Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury: 5/10: At 30 minutes this stand alone short resembles a Saturday morning cartoon rather than a plot bridge between Pitch Black and Chronicles of Riddick. (And Lord knows if any movie needed a plot bridge it was Chronicles of Riddick.)

The animation is a mixed bag with a lot of the 3d spaceship work leaving a bit to be desired (to shiny for one thing). And while the voice work is authentic, the story is a true one off throwaway. (Hammy and very unlikely villains happen to pop by.) The story may be a throwaway but it does at least give it points for being coherent. (And Lord knows if any movie needed a coherent story it was Chronicles of Riddick) The action scenes are generally well done with a little violence thrown in for good measure.

Certainly one gets the gut feeling that Dark Fury could have been a lot worse. Despite the decent amount of extras the DVD doesn't really work as a stand-alone product. It would however have made a fine second or third disk in the Chronicles of Riddick or even Pitch Black DVD releases.

Way to short but some of the sweetest animation WITH a plot for some time. Great use of the voices to keep the link to the franchise moving with big Vin battling all sorts including what i thought looked like a 'Giant Mecha Penis - with teeth'. Now I'm not one to crimp creative style, IT looked bizarre but it worked! Funny, bloody and slick - not since animatrix has something caught my attention so nicely. Like others before me this should be compulsory viewing before the new feature (i haven't seen it yet) just to get into the Riddick groove of things. This definitely could spawn a few more anime 'chronicles' and i hope it does. Animation like this needs an audience. More please....

I have never had more conflicted feelings about any animator. Peter Chung, creator of Aeon Flux brings us an interquel, Dark Fury to the films Pitch Black (a low budget sci-fi suspense story) and The Chronicles of Riddick (an action-packed sci-fi adventure). Dark Fury adds its own unique flavour, while retaining the greatness of the series. Chung has a very interesting style and I thought it translated well on screen.

The only one who didn't deliver as well however, surprisingly, was Riddick himself who delivered an unbelievable amount of redundant one-liners during the film and I did not have as much respect for him, like when I watched Chronicles.

Regardless, this is an excellent follow-up to Pitch Black.

I was a big fan of the bizarro Aeon Flux back in the 90's and director Peter Chung brings that wonderful style to the universe of Riddick (much like he did in The Animatrix).

Dark Fury is a small story set between Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick (which I haven't seen) in which Riddick, Jack and Abu dock their scout vessel with an ominous and evil ship filled with frozen Mercs and run by a vicious female overlord with a perverted idea of imprisonment.

The whole thing is basically an excuse for some quick violence but it's entertaining and expands upon the Riddick universe in interesting ways. I can see why Vin Diesel chose this franchise over TFATF and xXx.

The DVD is in non-anamorphic (!) 1.85:1 widescreen with Dolby 5.1 sound and a bunch of whogivesadamn extras.