Cult-Movie Review: Riddick (2013)

In the colorful lingo of one of its cut-throat mercenaries, Riddick (2013) takes “the jinx off the janx.” 

This third cinematic installment in the mythos that began with Pitch Black (2000) and continued -- shakily -- in Chronicles of Riddick (2004) -- is a thrilling and determined return to basics.   The story of a king in exile, Riddick is a spare drama that does away with the grandiose empire-building of the second franchise installment, and explores instead the next step in its anti-hero’s continuing personal evolution. 

Riddick (Vin Diesel) in this film must remember “who he was” before he lost the throne -- before he became “civilized” -- and I can’t help but believe that this is a deliberate metaphor for director David Twohy’s own growth and development as an artist as well. 

Specifically, this film remembers precisely why audiences loved Riddick in the first place.  

It’s not because he was destined to become ruler of the universe.  It’s because Riddick is a person who is always counted out by society, always “checked off the list,” and always left for dead…but who keeps fighting nonetheless.  The film's brilliant first shot -- a vulture moving in for the kill, over Riddick's apparent corpse -- expresses this dynamic beautifully.

I’ve read that some critics felt that the special effects aren’t that great in Riddick.  I’ve also read reviews that suggest the film plays like a pale copy of Pitch Black (2013). 

Well, to my eyes, the special effects look pretty solid here, at least a degree or two stronger than those featured in The Chronicles of Riddick (2004).  One CGI creature in the film – an alien dog -- boasts a lot of life and personality.  You come to care about the animal’s well-being, which is a testament to how well it is visualized.

And while this sequel plainly recalls Pitch Black, it does so with cunning purpose. 

Specifically, Riddick offers an interesting twist on the original film’s formula.  Riddick survives another round with monsters and mercenaries, but finally encounters someone who doesn’t cross him off the list. And that someone is a member of the establishment class that regularly derides him.  So while Riddick re-connects with his animal instincts in this film in his struggle to survive, he also re-connects with the human race, and gets to see that not everyone is bad, or out to destroy him.  That's something of a new wrinkle.

I’ve gone to great lengths over the last few weeks to note how John Carpenter-esque Riddick is as a silver-screen anti-hero, and so I must point out that Riddick, in reflecting the scenario of Pitch Black (but with updates), similarly conforms to Carpenter’s career-long Howard Hawks’ obsession.

To wit, Hawks essentially remade Rio Bravo (1959) twice with John Wayne, as both El Dorado (1966) and as Rio Lobo (1970).  Carpenter himself re-visited the central siege scenario of Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) in Prince of Darkness (1987) and Ghosts of Mars (2001).  He essentially re-made Escape from New York (1981) as Escape from L.A. (1996), but he turned the Plissken saga into more overt a satire the second time around.

Here, Riddick similarly re-assembles elements of Pitch Black, but re-purposes them to new ends.  As John Wayne reportedly noted of the Rio Bravo/El Dorado/Rio Lobo trifecta: if ain’t broken, don’t fix it. 

Bristling with action, horror, imagination and even some surprise pathos, Riddick reveals that, similarly, the Riddick-verse ain’t broken.

“Yet again, someone was trying to play me. So yet again, we play for blood.”

Escaped convict, murderer, and former king of the Necromongers, Richard B. Riddick (Diesel) awakens on a desolate, virtually uninhabitable planet to discover that he is but prey to vultures of the air, serpents of the mud, and jackal-like dingoes.

Riddick barely survives day-to-day in this dangerous wasteland, and wonders how he was so easily played by Vaako (Karl Urban), his former lieutenant.  Where did he miss a step?  When did he become so civilized that he couldn’t detect a betrayal in the offing?

While Riddick struggles to survive, he also recalls how he left the Necromongers’ fleet in search of his long-lost home, Furya, but was double-crossed and left for dead on this world…which he has dubbed “Not Furya.” 

Hoping to find the survivor within once more, Riddick befriends one of the planet’s dingoes, and with the dog’s help, builds up a resistance to the poisonous sting of the serpents which block his path to safer ground.

Once on that safer ground, Riddick explores an abandoned merc station. When a huge storm system approaches -- stirring up the deadly serpents by the thousands -- he realizes he needs an air-lift off the planet.  Accordingly, Riddick activates an emergency beacon, aware that bounty hunters the galaxy over won’t be able to resist the price on his head.

And soon the ships come. 

The first is captained by the savage Santana (Jordi Malla), a man who taunts Riddick about cutting off his head and putting it in a box. 

The second ship is captained by Boss Johns (Matt Nable), a man who has a personal grudge against Riddick. He is accompanied by a deadly but beautiful sniper, Dahl (Katee Sackhoff).

As the storms come, and the venomous serpents overrun the mercenary compound, Riddick must decide which bounty hunters he can trust, and which he can’t…

“Leave God out of this. He wants no part in what happens next.”

In Pitch Black, Riddick attempted to survive on a hostile planet alongside an untrustworthy mercenary, a devout man of God (the Imam), and a woman who -- because of her own sense of guilt -- was willing to die for him. 

All these ingredients get re-shuffled in Riddick, and delightfully so. 

In this case, the ostensibly untrustworthy mercenary proves trustworthy, the man of God (a Christian boy this time…) eschews the Jobe-like acceptance of his spiritual predecessor, and the woman in the group -- Dahl -- proves Riddick notably wrong regarding one of his more colorful predictions about their mutual future.

In essence, then, Riddick presents a familiar story of survival, but one laden with twists that go expressly against franchise expectations.   Riddick is a guy with an "I've seen it all attitude," and one of the best aspects of this sequel is the fact that though he repeats some of his stock-lines from the previous adventures (such as "It's not me you have to worry about..."), he also continuously gets dealt surprises in terms of his interactions with other human beings.  

This is a big deal for Riddick, a cynic and a critic of human nature. 

Most delightfully of all, the first half-hour of Riddick is downright riveting…and unexpectedly intimate.  This span of the film involves Riddick alone on screen for a long duration, attempting to survive the most hostile planetary environment imaginable. 

We watch him strangle the aforementioned vulture (one of the creatures that has premature counted him out…), painfully set a broken leg, find water to drink, and begin taking mental notes about the ubiquitous predators in the sea, on the land, and in the air.

These relatively quiet moments help us re-connect with Riddick in a way that the epic-scaled The Chronicles of Riddick never exactly managed.  From frame one -- with a whole planet rising up to kill him -- we are invested in Riddick's survival 

Riddick also befriends an alien dog, and the ensuing relationship is one of the movie’s key inspirations. 

Again, that's not what I expected out of a second sequel with so much history.  Riddick may not have an easy time with making human friends, but he and this dog really bond, a fact which makes some of the action later in the movie tough sledding for animal lovers.  

But in a weird (and oddly touching...) way, Riddick’s is at his most vulnerable ever in this film, showing grudging affection for that loyal dog.  Watching these long scenes with Riddick and his canine companion, I was pleasantly reminded of moments from Robinson Crusoe and other stories in which man and animal -- fighting the same enemies and bracing the same landscape -- turn to one another for friendship.

What I especially like about the first half of the film is that it feels no obligation to push, no desire to rush things along, and no need to explain everything.  We re-connect with Riddick, see how he got to this dangerous juncture, and watch him struggle to survive.  The courtly intrigue and prophecies about the balance of the galaxy have been replaced by more human-scaled concerns, and this is a good thing, as far as I'm concerned.  It's great that Karl Urban is here as Vaako to remind us that the franchise has a history to contend with, but the story can move forward ably even without big budget spectacle.

As usual, Twohy's script crackles with good (and funny...) dialogue. Riddick offers his trademark laconic commentary throughout the film regarding his current plight “There are bad days, and there are legendarily bad days,” he deadpans.  Fortunately for viewers, Riddick features the latter: a day filled with bloody violence, slobbering monsters, and other gory surprises.

In terms of great dialogue Riddick also offers, late in the film, an excessively detailed, point-by-point prediction about what, precisely, will happen, when he is freed from his chains.  This prediction begins with bloody violence, proceeds through horrible death, and ends with, well…hot sex.  It’s a crazy, confident, gonzo monologue, delivered with delicious B-movie verve, and a perfect Riddick moment. Vin Diesel is the same Riddick as ever, but he seems somehow unencumbered in this film, like he’s going for broke and giving it his all.  I'm glad the film is R-rated, and there's been no attempt to soft-pedal the character, or blunt his sharp edges.

I should add, as well, that Vin Diesel is ably supported here, especially by Katee Sackhoff. Sackhoff skillfully underplays every moment and each verbal put-down her character delivers. As a consequence, her performance is something of a revelation.  I also like her a bit older -- Sackhoff started on BSG when she was 24 or thereabouts -- I must confess.  Sackhoff remains as beautiful as ever, but seems eminently more convincing in Riddick because of the experience (and glimmer) she carries in her eyes.

Possessed of a solid visual imagination -- which gives rise to sights like flying Harleys called "jet hogs" -- and a deeply embedded sense of humor, especially in one scene involving an explosive device on a locked door, Riddick pretty much delivers everything it promises.  The film is low-budget for a space epic, to be certain, but high-impact in terms of the pure, nasty fun it delivers.

Free of pretension and girded by invention, Riddick gets the job done.  I hope Universal, David Twohy, and Vin Diesel get the chance to make another entry in the durable franchise before too long.

Movie Trailer: Riddick (2013)

Cult-Movie Review: The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)

“They are an army unlike any other, crusading across the stars toward a place called UnderVerse, their promised land, a constellation of dark new worlds. Necromongers, they're called. And if they cannot convert you, they will kill you. Leading them: the Lord Marshal. He alone has made a pilgrimage to the gates of the UnderVerse... and returned a different being. Stronger. Stranger. Half alive and half... something else. If we are to survive, a new balance must be found. In normal times, evil would be fought by good. But in times like these, well, it should be fought by another kind of evil.”

-          Introductory voice-over narration, The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)

Following the box office success of Pitch Black (2000), writer/director David Twohy was afforded the opportunity to construct a big-budget franchise around the film’s break-out character: Vin Diesel’s anti-hero, Riddick.

In 2004, The Chronicles of Riddick -- a sort of “Riddick meets Dune” re-vamp of the Riddick-verse -- was released to mixed critical reviews and middling box office.  Heavy on CGI landscapes and quick-cut fight sequences The Chronicles of Riddick undeniably proved imaginative and ambitious…perhaps to a fault.

A decade later, the film’s extensive special effects appear highly-dated, and one can also detect how the film shoe-horns two good stories together, even though, perhaps, they should have remained as two separate chapters.  One story involves Riddick’s escape from a burning planet called “Crematoria” and the rescue of a friend, Jack, while the other involves his interactions with a malevolent cosmic army the Necromongers, and unexpected ascent to the empire’s throne. 

Each story in its own right would have made a great second Riddick picture, but The Chronicles of Riddick often experiences trouble finding the right balance between them, and erects too vast a “mythic” architecture around Riddick. 

No longer is he merely a gifted and clever outlaw.  Instead, Riddick is the subject of sacred galactic prophecy, and the man who can save the universe from slipping into perpetual darkness. Riddick thus carries more weight on his muscular shoulders than Atlas himself, and there are times in the film when it’s all too much.  Choosing one story (and saving the next for a sequel) would have streamlined the movie and resulted in a more appealing, cohesive sequel.

When I first screened The Chronicles of Riddick in theaters, I felt profoundly disappointed with it, feeling that the film was over-stuffed and over-burdened in terms of “world building” and mythology-building.  What I had connected with so deeply in Pitch Black was the simple idea of a man surviving an inhospitable planetary environment and eco-system using his wits, and his own code of morality.  The Chronicles of Riddick features moments that reflect that particular (original) aesthetic, but everything has been made so grand and “galactic,” that much humanity is lost in the process.

Watching the film again for this review, I must acknowledge that I enjoyed and appreciated The Chronicles of Riddick much more than I had before, while still feeling that Twohy had miscalculated somewhat in terms of approach.  

Riddick is Riddick, and he can thrive or survive anywhere. He doesn’t need to be “The Chosen One” or the messiah for audiences to feel interest in his adventures. Yet today, I can also detect how The Chronicles of Riddick -- released in 2004 -- meaningfully reflects its War on Terror Age context.  The film involves a group of fundamentalist radicals, so called “World Enders” that have hijacked “established” civilization (think Iran, or Iraq) for belligerent purposes.  This subplot is pretty clearly a metaphor for radical Islam.

Also -- and I never picked up on this element before -- one of my very astute readers here, blogger Roman J. Martel, noted in the comments section of the Pitch Black review that my description of Riddick reminded him “strongly” of Robert E. Howard’s vision of Conan. 

Roman’s insight is doubly true of The Chronicles of Riddick. 

Much of the mythology that comes to surround Riddick in this sequel feels like a space age variation on Conan’s mythology.  Many details match, or at least line-up. That insight and literary context from Roman actually brings new luster to The Chronicles of Riddick, and makes the film much more intriguing to discuss and debate. 

So there is plainly more in The Chronicles of Riddick than I saw in 2004, even while some of the film’s flaws have not been ameliorated with the passing of a decade.

“There's gonna be one speed: mine. If you can't keep up, don't step up. You'll just die.”

On a planet consisting only of ultra-violet light, the bounty hunter Toombs (Nick Chinlund) attempts to capture the escaped convict Riddick (Vin Diesel), who has not been seen in five years.  Riddick promptly kills Toombs’ crew, strands Toombs on the planet, and steals his ship.

Riddick learns that the man who put the price on his head lives in New Mecca, in the Helion System.  Specifically, his old friend, the Imam (Keith David) is responsible for the bounty.  As the Imam -- now a husband and father -- reports to Riddick, the highly-advanced and civilized planet is under threat of invasion from an army of militant religious zealots called “Necromongers.”

Because Imam knows the story of Riddick’s birth -- that he was nearly strangled to death with his own umbilical cord and left for dead in a dumpster -- he suspects that the convict may play a role in the prophecy of the Necromongers’ destruction. 

Specifically, it is known that only a Furyan can destroy the Necromongers’ Lord Marshal (Colm Feore). So the Imam sent Toombs to retrieve Riddick, and share this information.

Riddick refuses to take sides in the conflict, but when the Necromongers swarm the planet, and kill the Imam, he fights the Lord Marshal and his soldier tooth-and-nail.  Like all the people of New Mecca, Riddick is given a simple choice by the invaders: convert or die.

Riddick escapes from custody, and allows himself to be re-captured by Toombs, in hopes that the bounty hunter will take him to Crematoria, the prison world where his old friend, Jack (Alexa Davalos) has been reported incarcerated. 

Toombs complies, and Riddick is dumped in the subterranean “slam” on Crematoria, a planet with an inhospitable, charred surface.  Riddick and Jack are reunited, but she now goes by the name of Kyra, and holds a grudge against Riddick for abandoning her five years earlier.  Riddick counters that he went into hiding so all the mercenaries gunning for him wouldn’t endanger her.

Putting their differences aside, Riddick and Kyra engineer a jail break to the fiery surface of the planet, even as the Lord Marshal’s top underling, Vaako (Keith Urban) arrives to bring Riddick back to Helion. 

But Vaako and his manipulative wife (Thandie Newton) are enmeshed in courtly politics, and believe that Riddick is the key to ridding the Necromongers of the Lord Marshal once and for all.  Using Riddick as his assassin, Dame Vaako hopes to install her husband in the Lord Marshal’s place.

 “We all began as something else.”

In very basic terms, The Chronicles of Riddick involves an invasion of a highly-civilized planet by fundamentalists that want to either “convert or kill” all sentient beings.  There is no negotiation with these violent radicals, either. You either become one of them, or you are destroyed.  Concepts such as democracy, education, and civilization mean nothing to these theocrats.  They care only for their draconian faith, and their (promised) ascent into another realm, the UnderVerse.

Very plainly, the Necromongers are meant to represent the Taliban, or other radical Islamists who had declared war on the Western world in the first decade of the 21^st century. Like the Necromongers, these radicals practice a restrictive, draconian faith, and claim that their (violent) actions in this reality will meet with a reward in the after-life.

This real-life context is reinforced in The Chronicles of Riddick via the setting of the planet Helion and the city of New Mecca. 

Specifically, there is a distinctive Middle Eastern design to the visualization of the Imam’s planet. New Mecca looks like it could be a space-age Tehran, or even Baghdad -- on Earth, once the home of the Islamic Golden Age -- before the fever of religious radicalism takes hold. In short, a planet of reason, technology and democracy falls to tyranny.  All the progress towards a just and fair society is lost.

The Necromongers are terrifying for the same reason that radical Islam is, in my opinion.  Imagine spending generations arduously lifting your culture out of ignorance, fear and superstition through the development of science, education and social justice, only to see a military coup which knowingly reinstates all those vices. 

Welcome to the New Dark Ages…

In my introduction, I mentioned the stories of Conan, and The Chronicles of Riddick also offers some unique parallels to that character’s life as it has been depicted in both literary and film form. 

In particular we learn that Riddick comes from an extinct planet called Furya.  Conan is, likewise, a Cimmerian, another survivor of a dead and gone society. 

Furthermore, in both Conan the Barbarian (1982) and The Chronicles of Riddick, we learn that a religious cult leader (either Thulsa Doom or the Lord Marshal…) is directly responsible for the death of the hero’s parents.  Thus, the life-time quest for that hero -- although he doesn’t know it, initially -- is to avenge his parents’ deaths and vanquish the war lord.

Similarly, Riddick and Conan have both functioned, throughout their narratives, as occasional thieves and outlaws. But they boast one other vocation in common, and it is of vital significance.

They are both kings.

During the denouement of The Chronicles of Riddick, Riddick assumes, uneasily, the Necromonger throne.

Similarly, in Howard’s mythology (and we see the image briefly in Conan the Barbarian…), Conan also usurps the throne of an enemy.  He replaces the tyrant of Aquilonia and becomes that kingdom’s ruler.

In terms of fantasy settings, The Chronicles of Riddick and Conan may even have something else in common: they are both set in a kind of baroque “mythological” age rather than an historical one.  Conan’s adventures are set in the long-gone -- and fictional -- age of Hyboria, and The Chronicles of Riddick is set in a distant future epoch.

One other inspiration also helps to lift The Chronicles of Riddick above its over-used CGI and chop-suey cutting: the works of Shakespeare. 

Vaako and Dame Vaako are very patently futuristic versions of MacBeth and Lady MacBeth.  Like their literary predecessors, these characters ambitiously scheme to control the kingdom, and eliminate the rightful ruler, whether King Duncan or the Lord Marshal. 

As befitting MacBeth’s characters, Vaako is the conspirator with doubts and some residual sense of loyalty. And by contrast, Dame Vaako is the one with murderous certainty.  Part of the reason that the Necromonger sequences work at all here is because of this Shakespearean dynamic made fresh.  The underlings of the Lord Marshal could have been fairly anonymous or lacking in definition, but the MacBeth “homage” adds resonance in a most welcome fashion.

Finally, I also appreciate the welcome visual imagination of The Chronicles of Riddick. 

The opening scene set on Planet U.V. is visually-distinctive, and the escape from Crematoria is, perhaps, the film’s adventure high-point.

In the latter case, a group of survivors flee across a desolate planet surface as walls of treacherous fire encroach on them.  When Jack becomes trapped on a mountain peak, Riddick must brave the scorching fires to pull her out of mortal danger.  It’s all pretty exciting, and dynamically wrought.

In space operas like Star Trek, Dune, and Star Wars, audiences have seen again and again the desert planet, the ice planet, and so on, but The Chronicles of Riddick tries hard to mix things up a bit with its unusual (and dangerous) planetary environments, and that’s certainly a point in the movie’s favor.

My deepest concern about The Chronicles of Riddick has always been the fact that a great (and Carpenter-ian…) anti-hero is ret-conned into being a sort of “Chosen One” on a heroic quest.  The comparisons to Conan’s story help ameliorate that concern to a large degree, it’s true, but the thing I’ve always liked about Riddick is that he seems like a very “in the moment” kind of character; one who measures his situation and his options, and acts according his moral code. 

Somehow, knowing that Riddick is the “instrument of fate” as it were diminishes some of his virtues.  He has been “ordained,” in other words to be special, because of his unique heritage….not because of his experience.  I suppose I just like my Riddick movies lean and mean, and without all the pretensions to grandeur.  I like the character as a bad-ass…I don’t need him to be a mythology-fueled, supernatural bad ass.

In terms of production design and imagery, I love the concepts of The Chronicles of Riddick, but dislike the execution. I fully realize that CGI is the preferred mode for visualizing other worlds at this juncture in cinema history, and will be for the foreseeable future.  But there’s so much CGI in The Chronicles of Riddick that your eyes don’t always know where to look, and they nearly get burned out by the over-stimulation.  When absolutely every edifice is colossal and baroque, nothing really looks impressive or stands out anymore.  Instead, it all looks kind of…flat.

Similarly, the fight scenes in the film have been turned into nonsensical hash. The quick-cutting ruins any sense of rhythm or momentum, and instead, we’re just watching sheer spectacle: (beautiful) bodies in motion.  In these fights, men and women defy gravity (courtesy of wires), but we never really know how or why they do so.  In conjunction with the CGI overkill, the editing approach for the fight scenes creates a sense of distance from Riddick.

And so while I remain authentically impressed with the real world War on Terror context and the Conan influences in The Chronicles of Riddick, I am also disappointed by the film’s colossal-ness, to coin a term.

The one quality I sought most in a Riddick sequel was to re-connect with the character emotionally. Riddick has some great lines of dialogue here, and Vin Diesel still moves great, but all the world-building around Riddick keeps us away from getting as close to the guy and his struggles as perhaps viewers would like to be. 

Pitch Black was thrilling, spectacular, and most importantly, intimate.  The Chronicles of Riddick is….spectacular on a whole other level, but often at the expense of intimacy.

Next Tuesday: Riddick (2013).

Movie Trailer: The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)

Richard B. Riddick: Escaped Convict, Murderer and John Carpenter-styled Anti-Hero

"All you people are so scared of me. Most days I'd take that as a compliment. But it ain't me you gotta worry about now..."

- Carpenter-esque anti-hero Riddick (Vin Diesel) assesses the situation in Pitch Black.

In my review of writer/director David Twohy's Pitch Black (2000) I described it as "the best John Carpenter movie not actually directed by John Carpenter." In terms of explanation, this comparison all comes down to the vital character of Richard Riddick (Vin Diesel), and the way that Pitch Black's anti-social hero interfaces with his distinctly imperfect universe.

Specifically, Riddick relates to his world and views his surroundings (and fellow humans) in a manner remarkably similar to the Carpenter anti-hero prototype depicted in the auteur's filmed works from Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) and Escape from New York (1981) to Ghosts of Mars (2001).

Given this postulate, I propose six essential qualities of the Carpenter-esque hero and his world. After noting pertinent examples in Carpenter's cinematic canon, I will describe how Riddick -- at least in Pitch Black -- also fits the bill.

1.) The Carpenter Anti-Hero is a man whose reputation precedes him. He's also a Bad MF..

In Carpenter's oeuvre, the anti-hero is often a notorious man known because of his (usually criminal...) exploits. His deeds have separated him from most of humanity; and the masses gaze at him with a combination of fear, awe, and curiosity. 

Napoleon Wilson (Darwin Joston) in Assault on Precinct 13 is a subject of intense curiosity to members of the establishment class, including his jailer, Starker (Charles Cyphers): "You're not a psychopath. You're not stupid," he says "why did you kill all those people?" 

This question allows us to understand that Wilson is not simply a run-of-the-mill thug, an indiscriminate killer. There was something...else going on when he committed his crimes.

In Escape from New York, Snake Plissken is greeted at virtually ever destination with the same comment; one that establishes his history and mythic stature: "I thought you were dead." 

In Escape from L.A. (1996), a satiric take on the character, this comment is changed to "I thought you'd be taller." 

The point, in both circumstances, is that before meeting the anti-hero for themselves, people already boast a pre-conceived, larger-than-life notion of him and his actions.

The anti-hero may be a law-breaker, but he's no ordinary law-breaker. He's much more than that. 

In Pitch Black, Riddick is described by Jack (Rhiana Griffith) in similar fashion, as an accomplished murderer, a total BMF: "He'd probably get you here, right here, under the chin, and you'd never even hear him. That's how good Riddick is!," he establishes. 

Earlier, Riddick's captor, Johns (Cole Hauser), notes that Riddick is dangerous "only around humans." And that if Riddick finds you in your sleep, he could well "skull-fuck you." 

Again, this is myth-making pure-and-simple; a creation of the character as something out of the realm of the ordinary.

Why build-up a character, a criminal, like this? Well, when the moment of dying comes, these various films require a protagonist of extraordinary skill and efficiency; one the audience can have utter confidence in. 

And, Carpenter is eternally in the anti-establishment camp, so traditional heroes like policeman, aren't going to do the job. Carpenter's anti-heroes universally-combat members of the establishment too, including Hauk, Malloy, Starker, etc.  Riddick has this kind of establishment nemesis as well: the drug-addicted Johns.

2.) The Carpenter Anti-Hero is a Man of Unique and Distinctive Vision. Literally.

The Carpenter anti-hero is universally a maverick "born out of time," to quote Wilson, a man who views the world quite differently than the forces of authority who dominate it.

Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) sees the United States as corrupt and bereft of freedom in both Escape films. John Nada (Roddy Piper) discovers the alien conspiracy behind humanity's existence (and the Republican agenda...) in They Live (1988).

In Pitch Black, Riddick is also a character who shuns authority, and exists only around the periphery of it.

More trenchantly, the "vision" of these characters is all hampered (or perhaps augmented?) in a fashion that visually separates them from the other dramatis personae in the films. Snake wears an eye-patch. John Nada adorns a pair of sunglasses (which he wears throughout the film), so that he can see reality as it is; the very opposite, one might conclude, of rose-colored glasses.

Riddick is no different. His eyes have been surgically altered. "When you get sent to a slam, where they tell you you'll never see daylight again, you dig up a doctor, and you pay him 20 menthol Kools to do a surgical shine job on your eyeballs," he tells Jack. 

This means Riddick can see in the dark (and also see who is sneaking up on him.) Like Snake and Nada, Riddick's vision is literally a quality that separates him from others. The idea that he "sees" differently is critical to an understanding of the anti-establishment character, and we have that in Snake, Nada and Riddick.

3.) The Carpenter Anti-Hero establishes kinship with a woman with perceived comparable qualities.

A long-time admirer of Western director Howard Hawks, John Carpenter often populates his films with the so-called Hawksian woman. Authors Tim Bywater and Thomas Sobchack describe a Hawks woman in this fashion (Introduction to Film Criticism, Longman, 1989, page 72):

"She has a sense of identity beyond her alliances (with high society), and she is committed only to those personal ties she wishes to acknowledge."

Think of Feathers (Angie Dickinson) in Rio Bravo (1959), or Leigh (named after Leigh Brackett) in Assault on Precinct 13.

In the case of the latter, Leigh (Laurie Zimmer) is able to cross societal barriers to accept Napoleon Wilson - a criminal -- as a trusted ally and even a man of honor. In Ghosts of Mars, Melanie Ballard (Natasha Henstridge) is able to put aside her role as hard-boiled cop to team up with the notorious criminal Desolation Williams (Ice Cube). They come to realize that they are, in essence, two-of-a-kind.

In Pitch Black, Riddick similarly detects something kindred in pilot Caroline Fry (Radha Mitchell): they're both survivors; they both understand their situation, as well as the sacrifices that will have to made. Only in Caroline's case, after nearly making a decision that would kill her wards during the crash, she willfully steps back from the moral precipice. She refuses to accept her own survival as the bottom line and actively seeks to save the other people stranded on this pitch black planet of the flying piranhas.

Importantly, Fry also chooses to place her trust in Riddick over his nemesis, Johns, who masquerades as a police officer (but is really a merc). So again, a Hawks-styled self-sufficient woman has put aside established "roles" in society, and selected an alliance based on her own "personal ties" and feelings about which man is more trustworthy.

Riddick mercilessly tests Fry, urging her to leave the other stranded castaways behind, but she beats him at his own game. She shames Riddick by her refusal to act in selfish terms. They may both be tough; they may both be capable, but Fry is connected to the human race in a way that Riddick is not. Riddick thinks he can grow Fry's killer instinct; Fry proves she can nurture Riddick's dormant conscience. Her extraordinary qualities have an impact on a man like Riddick.

4.) The Carpenter anti-hero is a man been burned by religious faith, though it still has a place in his psyche.

The Carpenter anti-hero is one with few connections to the mortal coil, and yet who feels equally disappointed by the dogma of religion and faith.

In The Thing (1982), Kurt Russell's helicopter pilot MacReady notes that "faith is a hard thing to come by these days." He won't take anyone -- or their identity -- on faith.  Not with the shape-shifting alien nearby.

In Assault on Precinct 13, Wilson comments that, as a boy, he met a preacher who told him that, as he grew up, he would "have something to do with death." This odd comment affected him. It was a prophecy that came true.  He has always known, in some sense, his destiny.

Riddick also has a relationship with faith that isn't strictly positive. When he is questioned about his religious beliefs by the Imam (played by Carpenter regular and star of The Thing and They Live, Keith David), Riddick rails against him, and against the Divine's role in his life:

"Think someone could spend half their life in a slam with a horse bit in their mouth and not believe? Think he could start out in some liquor store trash bin with an umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and not believe? Got it all wrong, holy man. I absolutely believe in God... And I absolutely hate the fucker."

Incidentally, Riddick's bad childhood also gives him another trait in common with Carpenter anti-heroes such as orphaned Jack Crow (Vampires [1998]), and Nada, from They Live, as we see below.

5.) Through the Anti-hero's actions, some aspect of "The Order" is changed.

The Carpenter anti-hero is one who, through often his final act, changes the shape and order of things in his world.

In Escape from L.A., Snake Plissken activates the Sword of Damocles and plunges the world into darkness, so that America can start over, and liberty can be re-born.

In They Live, John Nada destroys the alien satellite dish sending constant hypnotic signals to all human beings, revealing the world as it truly is; not through the filter of reality the alien echo chamber has created.

In The Thing, MacReady destroys the base, and holds the Thing at bay in the icy winter, even though it means his eventual death.

In an intriguing variation of the Carpenter aesthetic, the order that Riddick changes in Pitch Black involves his own personal code of conduct. After Fry dies, instead of fleeing the planet in the escape transport, Riddick returns to rescue the Imam and Jack. He essentially fulfills Fry's mission. He is shamed by the fact that she has "died for him," (certainly a religious allegory; a kind of Christ-like self-sacrifice from Fry that essentially washes away Riddick's sin). 

"Not for me!" He complains. He views himself unworthy of Fry's sacrifice, and now must make himself worthy.

After the escape from the planet, Jack asks what should be done if the transport encounters the authorities (and mercs).

"Tell them Riddick's dead. He died somewhere back on that planet," Riddick states, an acknowledgment that the change has come from inside his soul. 

The old Riddick is dead. The Riddick that Fry tried so hard to nurture has finally taken his place.

6.) He is a man whose enemies represent a faceless, unthinking legion; a legion that doesn't recognize individual personality, pain, or even humanity.

The Carpenter anti-hero -- a flawed (but strong) human -- is almost universally pitted against a very specific kind of enemy: an attacking horde that seems to lack the anti-hero's enormous sense of individuality.

The gang in Assault on Precinct 13, Street Thunder, consists of hundreds of undifferentiated goons who keep attacking the police station regardless of personal injury or mortality. They just keep attacking, like robots, or zombies.

Inside New York Penitentiary, Snake encounters the "Crazies," another band of indiscriminate, animalistic killers. Even in Ghosts of Mars, the warrior Martians are not differentiated as individuals on the whole (save for Big Daddy Mars), but rather as a horde. And when one dies, his spirit moves into another body, sort of the ultimate in anonymity and horde-attacking. Likewise, Prince of Darkness also features hordes of homeless people as "cells" manipulated by Satan.

Although not human or even humanoid, the flying dragons of Pitch Black boast some of the same characteristics. They are indeed a swarm; a beast-like enemy that seems able to act both collectively and individually, and on instinct rather than evolved human motives. Riddick defeats them because he can "see" them in a way the others can't. He learns their weak spots.

Given how easily Riddick fits into the Carpenter anti-hero paradigm, Pitch Black is not merely a terrific, scary and engaging horror film (and one of the best of the 2000s), but a production that faithfully pays homage to one of the finest genre directors of the past quarter-century. Thus Riddick joins the ranks of Napoleon Wilson, Snake Plissken, John Nada and Desolation Williams. He is a criminal, a murderer, an outsider, and a maverick.

And when "the tide is getting high" and the "time of dying" is at hand, Riddick is also the one man you absolutely want fighting at your side.