Dark Fury

In the movie Pitch Black we met Riddick, the biggest baddest man on two legs. A convicted murderer on his way back to the slam, his ship crash-landed, on a barren constantly lit planet. However, its orbit carried it into a rare conjunction with two gas giants, throwing the planet in to a total eclipse every 22 years. And the planet is inhabited, by monsters that hate the light. In the dark, with the handful of survivors, Riddick learned he was not completely divorced from humanity.

These are his adventures immediately after escaping the planet in the company of Jack, and the Imam. These adventures are animated, but Vin Diesel, Rhiana Griffith and Keith David return to provide the voices, providing lovely continuity.

Their ship is captured by a plantation ship. The crop this ship harvests; Bounties. It is packed full of Mercs, and will stay out until it fills every cryo chamber with a prisoner.

The leader is a real whack job named Chillingsworth (Tress McNeille). Obsessed with violence she fancies herself an art connoisseur. She collects mass murderers and freezes them into a statues using a form of cryo sleep that leaves them immobile, but still thinking, for centuries. She uses Jack and the Imam to force Riddick to fight for her amusement before he too joins her gallery. She gives him a knife.

A ship packed to the gills with thousands of mercs and the best tracking equipment money can buy lies between Riddick and freedom. The only question is does he actually kill them all?

This "movie" is a mere 35 minutes long. It was done by the same project that did the Animatrix movie, at about the same time. The art is stunning; the backgrounds look to be CGI, but the characters are all animated. The style of animation is very similar to the Aeon Flux animation with distorted physiology and craggy impossible features, but Riddick, Jack and the Imam look recognizably like themselves. The Zero G movement is brilliantly done. On the whole, the art is not my choice, but it is above average; four stars.

In whole, this is a violent action packed cartoon that does little to advance the plot. It hints at dark forces in the universe, Necromongers and Furyans, but nothing more. It is not a true bridge, more like an ornamental sign post.

Taken as a movie, this project fails. But taken as a very rich extra to the larger Chronicles of Riddick, this is extremely successful. It has far more production value than one would expect from an Extra. It was even nominated for an award in sound editing. Don't expect too much, and don't buy it except as part of the Chronicles of Riddick Trilogy pack, and enjoy it for what it is.