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Starring
The Voices Of: Vin Diesel, Rhina Griffith, Keith David, Nick Chinlund, Roger L.
Jackson, Tress Macneille, and Dwight Schultz
Writer:
Brett Matthews
Based
On A Story By: David Twohy
Based
On Characters Created By: Jim Wheat and Ken Wheat
Director:
Peter Chung
Feature
length: 35 minutes
Extras:
Featurettes
Languages:
English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
Subtitles:
English Captions and French and Spanish Language Subtitles
Packaging:
Keep Case
Sound:
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
Year
of DVD Release: 2004
Home
Video Distributor: Universal Studios Home Video
MPAA
Rating: Not Rated
Reviewer:
Mark A. Rivera
Beginning
shortly after where “Pitch Black” left off, “The Chronicles Of Riddick:
Dark Fury” finds our antihero and the remaining survivors from the previous
film captured aboard a grand and exotic mercenary ship where the female Captain
keeps an army of mercenaries and creatures on ice for the express purpose of
containing and testing the galaxy’s worst criminals. Afterwards she places the
various thugs in a near death like stasis where they are completely conscious,
but frozen like a statue. She considers Riddick to be a potential crown to her
“art” collection and forces him to fight strange alien monsters in her own
personal arena where his companions fate rest on Riddick’s abilities.
The
intention behind this short animated story is to bridge the world created in
“Pitch Black” to the new feature film release “The Chronicles Of Riddick.”
So we are introduced to an expanded universe with a few small hints that help to
set up the situations in the new live action film that includes the introduction
of the bounty hunter “Toombs” played by Nick Chinlund, who reprises his role
from the newly released feature “The Chronicles Of Riddick” by lending his
voice for this animated prequel. Also reprising their voices for their animated
counterparts is star Vin Diesel as “Riddick” and Keith David as “Imam.”
The animated film features alien creature designs by Fil Barlow, who has
provided artistic interpretations of some noteworthy sci-fi novel creations in
various books as well as designed the alien monsters for the TV movie “Babylon
5: Third Space.” Peter Chung’s animation style suits the characters quite
well with a mix of traditional cell animation and computer generated effects.
This animated film is geared more toward adults than children with some violent
images and a bit of gore.
Although
the picture quality is very sharp and without a hint of compression artifacts or
anomalies, “The Chronicles Of Riddick: Dark Fury” is presented in a
letterboxed aspect ratio of about (1.78:1). Since this is geared toward older
teenagers and adults and not little children for obvious reasons I am at a loss
as to why the DVD was not released with anamorphic enhancement. At least the
English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Soundtrack really rocks with an aggressive
use of all the channels to create a great three-dimensional home theater
listening experience. English Captions for the hearing impaired and French and
Spanish Language Subtitles are encoded as options.
Extra
features include “Animatic To Animation” (32:48), which is the entire
original storyboarded version of “The Chronicles Or Riddick: Dark Fury” that
the actors recorded their voices to early in the process. It is an interesting
way to see how ideas originate and change when compared to the final animated
film. “From Pitch Black To The Chronicles Of Riddick: Bridging The Gap”
(8:33) discusses why “Dark Fury” was produced and how it fits in with the
overall storyline. There is also a video interview with animator and director
Peter Chung (5:05), who explains in a candid fashion how animation has changed
and how he feels his work has matured over the years. Finally there is the EPK
featurette “Into The Light” (5:05), which includes more scenes from “The
Chronicles Of Riddick.”
The
interactive menus are easy to navigate. A reel of preview trailers (1:23) for
“Knight Rider: Season One” and “The Chronicles Of Riddick: Pitch Black”
precede the main menu. “The Chronicles Of Riddick: Dark Fury” will debut on
DVD-Video on Tuesday, June 15, 2004 at retailers on and offline from Universal
Studios Home Video.
©
Copyright 2004 By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.
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