The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury
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Universal Studios Home Video / 2004 / 30 Minutes / Not Rated
Street Date: August 3, 2004 
I enjoyed The Animatrix and recommended it highly to anyone intrigued by the work of Larry and Andy Wachowski. With a collection of nine different tales, it was a helpful bridge between The Matrix and its sequel, providing back-stories, parallel stories, and a plotline transition from motion picture to motion picture. That DVD release seems to have provoked a minor trend. Although they are not as ambitious as The Animatrix, we now have two additional animated efforts that either introduce the title character (Van Helsing: The London Assignment) or offer an intermediate story between a motion picture and its sequel. The latter would be, of course, The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury. Having escaped from the planet of night terrors, Riddick (Vin Diesel), Jack (Rhiana Griffith), and Imam (Keith David) are in trouble in deep space. They are captured by a group of mercenaries - called mercs in the slang of their universe - manning a large and powerful ship. The ship's captain (Julia Fletcher) is obsessed with violent criminals. She sees death as an art form and rather than collecting the bounties on all of the brutes she and her crew capture, she has the most impressive mounted. They are alive, in a state of extended existence with all ambulatory and metabolic functions slowed. Only the trophies' thought processes remain active in normally perceived time. Her living art collection is aware but is essentially unable to move. It's a cruel fate for cruel creatures, and Riddick's reputation makes him a notable candidate for her collection. She must first see him in action. With his companions in jeopardy, Riddick's forced to battle vicious alien life forms. He must triumph; after all, we all know that he will return in The Chronicles of Riddick. He must defeat these seemingly invincible monsters, but this anti-hero is more interested in doing away with his captors. Clearly, this short animated film (34:49) is short on plot and long on action. There is little exposition or story. The object of the exercise is to unleash Riddick to do his worst and to provide a linkage between two very different motion pictures. Video: How Does The Disc Look? The film's direct to video aspect ratio of 1.85:1 is presented in non-anamorphic widescreen video. There is no excuse in today's market for a non-anamorphic transfer. All the flaws of reduced resolution may be found here, from more pronounced jaggies on diagonal edges to a visible line structure to a general sense of soft mushiness. And to compound the problems, dot crawl may be seen at the boundaries of intense chroma, particularly red. That would imply that the master for this DVD was captured to composite video, like D-2 digital videotape. To its credit, halos are non-existent, so none of the visual problems halos cause are present. And shadow detail, assessable in the gradients of the CGI graphics, is excellent. Assessing color accuracy is difficult, since the palette is somewhat arbitrary. Flesh tones are not a reliable guide. I will mention I found the color to be vivid and noise-free. Audio: How Does The Disc Sound? I expected more from the Dolby Digital 5.1 track. I found the dynamic range and the attack times to be a bit anemic, which deprived the sound effects of a visceral impact. The dramatic use of the surround channels could have elevated the presentation, overwhelming the senses to distract from the limited quality of the cel animation. Alas, with the exception of gunfire and a few off-screen sound effects during the conflicts, the front channels dominated the audio. Dialog was quite clear throughout, but not consistent. To my ears, it sounded like some of the voice actors were farther away from the studio microphone than others. Vin Diesel in particular sounded like he was as close to the microphone as the recording engineers would allow, so he could emote in his soft, intimidating growl. Other voice actors seem much farther away from the microphone and they each have a distinctly distant (but non-reverberant) sound. The inconsistencies are disconcerting. Deep bass neither plumbed the depths nor was it felt. Another missed opportunity - there were certainly many sequences where a good sonic blow to the gut would have been effective. And Machine Head's raucous score is so processed that judging the fidelity is impossible. There are no alternate language tracks, but there are optional French and Spanish subtitles. English subtitles for the hearing impaired are also on the disc. Supplements: What Goodies Are There? The DVD is programmed to open with two DVD previews (1:23, aggregate): Knight Rider Season One; and, the June '04 re-release of Pitch Black. The trailers may be skipped with your next chapter button, but are unavailable elsewhere. As with the feature, all the supplements on this DVD are in full-screen From Pitch Black to The Chronicles of Riddick: Bridging the Gap (8:33) is a short little explanation of how feature film writer and director David Twohy decided to fill the gap between the two films. He mentions that it was a conscious decision to make the second Riddick film very different, a move away from SciFi horror toward SciFi adventure. So he felt that this animated feature would be helpful to make that transition. Also in this short, Peter Chung describes the challenge to bringing the character to animation. Animatic to Animation (32:48) - almost exactly two minutes shorter than the feature) is a presentation of the entire story in animatic form with most of the essential dialog intact. It's the most explicit demonstration I've seen of an intermediate product that is used by the director and animators to visualize rhythms and pace as an animated film is being produced. Peter Chung - The Mind of an Animator (5:05) is a brief opportunity for the animation director to describe the process and the various development stages, and demonstrate the integration of CGI and cel animation. Into the Light (also 5:05) is very likely the predominant reason this DVD was created. It is essentially a short promotional tool to generate interest in the theatrical release of The Chronicles of Riddick. We're given the briefest of behind the scenes glimpses and hear from cast and crew as they drum up some interest in the film. DVD-ROM Exclusives: What do you get when you pop the disc in your PC? There are no PC enhanced extras included. Parting Thoughts Even though this DVD is readily available for less than ten dollars, I'm still hard pressed to express any enthusiasm for a buy recommendation. If the presentation had been anamorphic and if the audio had been more impressive, perhaps I would have suggested a purchase. But considering that this little tale isn't necessary to enjoy The Chronicles of Riddick theatrical release, I'm going to suggest that this disc is best left to Riddick completionists. |
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