I flew out of the van, fists clenched and ready to pound. My eyes were on the Goose Lord’s Enforcer and the crumpled mess of a kangaroo that lay in front of him. I would beat him within an inch of his life for what he did to Edwige, but my gesture was ill-advised. One of the punks in the crowd of onlookers tossed a brick in my direction. It hit my Achilles tendon and I lost my stance, tumbling to the ground while the crowd jeered at me. The Enforcer wrapped his chain whip around my neck, dragging me to my feet.

“Drop your weapons and surrender, Manta,” the Enforcer said as he touched my jugular with a Bowie knife, pressing gently into the skin.

— To be continued.

Tonight’s movie is 2013’s Riddick from director David Twohy. Funny—this movie was originally playing in theaters only a few weeks after I had started this very blog. Salad days. Anyway, we had left off about five years prior with Richard B. Riddick (Vin Diesel) being declared the new Lord Marshal of the fanatical Necromongers. During that time, he has neglected to swear an oath to their faith and has most likely been flying the fleet in circles. Riddick wants out and wants to find the planet of his people, Furya. Commander Vaako (Karl Urban) makes a deal with him: he’ll tell him the location of Furya if Riddick abdicates the throne to him.

Riddick and a troop of Necromongers arrive on an alien world, but it doesn’t take Riddick long to realize that this isn’t Furya and he’s been set up. After a fracas with the Necromongers, it would seem that our anti-hero has fallen to his death, but he survives, only to find himself alone on a hostile world. And it wouldn’t be a Riddick movie without horrible monsters that want to devour you whole. The worst of these are venomous creatures that live in the shallow desert waters. Riddick wants to reach greener pastures, but these awful creatures are blocking his path.

He captures an alien wolf to test the creature’s venom on before injecting himself to slowly build an immunity. Riddick then confronts the creature, cutting it down to size and making it past its brethren to the promised land. The alien wolf also tags along. That’s right, Riddick has a dog in this movie, and it’s probably the first time in this series that I’ve seen him in a good mood. I guess animals can be better companions than people.

But his exile can’t last forever, as he notices a nasty storm brewing in the far distance. Fortunately, there’s an abandoned Merc outpost nearby that has a handy distress beacon. Riddick knows that any Merc in the area won’t be able to resist the bounty on his head. All he needs is one of their ships to get off-world. From here on, we see things from the Mercs’ perspective. The first to arrive is the group headed by the vile Santana (Jordi Mollà), who vows to put Riddick’s head in a box. The other group of Mercs is headed by Colonel Johns (Matt Nable), the father of William Johns from Pitch Black. Colonel Johns doesn’t care about the bounty, he wants Riddick to tell him what happened to his son. As the two groups fight over Riddick, that nasty storm is drawing closer, and with it, several of those awful venomous creatures.

It was great seeing some veteran science-fiction actors in this movie, such as Dave Bautista and Katee Sackhoff. They are currently shooting yet another Riddick movie, and I can’t wait to see where David Twohy and Vin Diesel take us next.

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.