"Riddick" has got to be the worst science fiction film I've seen in a long time, at least since Travolta's "Battlefield Earth". From the frankly pretentious introduction from writer/director David Twohy, all the way thru to the mind-numbing finale, all you get is a parade of great eye candy used in the service of a muddled and incoherent story. Riddick, who was just a simple convict in "Pitch Black", is now transformed into something called a Furyan, some sort of super warrior race that was wiped out by the other races or by the big bad Necromongers (what a stupid name!) - after seeing it twice, I still can't figure that one out. It's the same ridiculous "twist" that Stephen Sommers used in "The Mummy Returns" with Brendan Fraser's character; it didn't work then and it sure doesn't work here, either. You also get Judy Dench ("M" from the Pierce Brosnan Bond movies) as something called an air elemental who can turn into some sort of foggy stuff and can glide (but not fly!) but who has really nothing at all to do with the story. The main villains, a religious sect called the Necromongers, are pitched to us as the supreme evil in the universe, a force that will destroy all human life wherever it's found (which makes you wonder why they have wives). Problem is, they seem to be more interested in a pedestrian and boring power struggle for their throne than in carrying out their "holy mission". The movie drops you right into the middle of this mess - I suppose that it was meant to be an intriguing way to start the movie but after the first 30 minutes you'll still be scratching your head trying to figure what the heck's going on. If you haven't seen "Pitch Black", then you won't understand a good half of the movie anyway.<br /><br />But the real problem with this thing is the utter and unrelenting darkness of the whole thing - all the characters that exhibit any kind of humanity are killed, leaving us only with the cardboard villains or the cardboard "hero" who mouth insipid and repellent lines like "you keep what you kill" which, from the last shot, appears to be some sort of moral Twohy is trying to teach us. There's never any real suspense or sense that Riddick is in danger - he's just an indestructible cypher who you know will win the big showdown against the Evil Leader in the end. To make it even worse, this is a "director's cut" which in this case means that you get a movie that is even more boring than the theatrical release. A waste of money to make, and a waste of money to watch.