Edwige hopped toward the Enforcer of the Goose Lord and then stopped five feet in front of him. I’d seen that stance before. It’s what she used once before committing a fatal blow, one she delivered with a flying roundhouse. Edwige made her move, but so did the Enforcer. He brandished a chain whip that lit up with electrical power. It hit Edwige in the pouch, and the volts pulsed through her. She whined and collapsed to the concrete.

“Edwige!” I screamed before darting from the van to rush the Enforcer.

— To be continued.

This week’s movie is 2004’s The Chronicles of Riddick from director David Twohy. It received bad reviews upon release, but what do critics know? Our movie begins with Dame Judi Dench talking about a dark army called the Necromongers that have become a plague on humanity. You either convert to their unholy religion or die. They’ve destroyed world after world, and Judi tells us that while evil is usually fought by good, this evil needs to be fought by another kind of evil.

Naturally, the next scene is Richard B. Riddick (Vin Diesel) being chased by a particularly scummy merc named Toombs (Nick Chinlund). Riddick turns the tables on Toombs, steals his ship, and flies off to Helion Prime. There he meets Imam Abu al-Walid (Keith David), who tells him that a bounty was put on his head to get his butt over to Helion Prime because Riddick is not just some murderous outlaw, but the last of the Furians, a warrior race that defied the Necromongers. We learn this from an Air Elemental named Aereon (Judi Dench) because there is a human tribe that are Elementals?

I feel like a lot is being tossed at me in the first twenty minutes of the movie and we haven’t even gotten to the villains yet. At the top is the Lord Marshal (Colm Feore), the half-dead/half-alive master of the Necromongers. He can steal people’s souls but also separate his own soul from his body for double the punch. We have Commander Vaako (Karl Urban) and his scheming wife, Dame Vaako (Thandiwe Newton), who wants her husband to kill the Lord Marshal and take over because “Necromongers keep what they kill.” The Necromongers invade Helion Prime, wiping out the planet’s defense force. Riddick does his best to protect Imam, but he gets killed by a Necromonger named Irgun.

In the morning, the Lord Marshal demands that the people of Helion Prime “Convert now or fall forever.” They all bow before him except for one man, and that man’s name is Riddick! He challenges Irgun to a street fight and kills him. The Lord Marshal is impressed with Riddick and invites him aboard his battle cruiser for testing by the “Quasi-Deads,” which I assume isn’t as good as being a “Holy Half-Dead” like the Lord Marshal. The Quasi-Deads freak out when they discover Riddick is a Furion and hiss, “Kill the Riddick!” The Lord Marshal orders, “Kill the Riddick,” leaving Riddick to fight his way through dozens of angry Necromongers.

He barely makes it when Toombs and a new batch of mercenaries kidnap him and spirit him off to the prison planet Crematoria. There, Riddick meets Jack, the other survivor of Pitch Black, the orphan girl who disguised herself as a boy. She ran away from the care of the Imam for a life of crime and murder. Jack now goes by the name Kyra (Alexa Davalos). Wait! What? How am I supposed to follow along when characters get their names changed? I am so confused! Do you know what I’m not confused about? Richard B. Riddick could kill Luke Skywalker with a teacup! Take that, Star Wars fans!

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, episode 450, episode 477, episode 491, episode 492, episode 493, episode 495, episode 496, episode 545, episode 546, episode 547, episode 548, episode 549, episode 575, episode 596, episode 597, episode 598, episode 599, episode 642, episode 643, episode 644, episode 645, episode 670, episode 686, episode 687,  688, and 689) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.