A Fúria de Riddick

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.

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.

I thought Pitch Black was enjoyable enough but was left entirely unimpressed by Chronicles of Riddick so what chance did an animated short have? Not bad actually.

It tells the rather short story of what happened to Riddick, Imam and Jack after they escaped the original movie. Picked up by mercenaries it appears they have gotten out of one mess and straight into another.

Made by Peter Chung I have to say the films biggest weakness is the animation style, it really is quite dreadful. It's half way between a cheaply made Saturday morning cartoon and the excellent Monkey Dust (2003). I just couldn't get past how crappy it looks, in some places more than others.

The story is rushed (As it needed to be considering its length) and rather uninspired but it's construction and competent voice cast save it.

Diesel and David return to add credibility to the whole affair which feels more like a cashgrab than anything else.

Though not blown away with the Riddick franchise, it hasn't entirely been without it's notable moments. Off the top of my head that's three down two to go.

The Good:

Voice cast

The Bad:

Highly average stuff as a whole

Not keen on the animation style

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Mentioning Monkey Dust has got me all nostalgic, damn that was a good show

I just saw Dark Fury on a rented DVD and had very satisfying experience. Dark Fury is well drawn, fast paced and with a little CGI to spice it up.The animated short story takes place where we last left Riddick, the preacher and the wannabe tough girl in Pitch Black. They are picked up by a fairly big spaceship of hightech bounty hunters. From here on Riddick starts to kick ass and continues to do so for about 30 min. Vin Diesel's voice is one of the coolest in Hollywood only topped(maybe) by Sean Connery. The only problem in this animated adventure is that it is to damn short(33 min). It's a colorful and interesting universe with a great villain and some fantastic and imaginative actionscenes. In short terms Riddick kicks butt yet again. I went straight in on my Pc, went online and bought this little baby. Hail to the king baby. I give it a 7,5 out of 10.

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 :.