Grade: F

Verdict: Riddick-ulous. Vin Diesel and director David Twohy should be ashamed of themselves.

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
Cox News Service

With the toxic new Vin Diesel flick "The Chronicles of Riddick," we have our first serious contender for Worst Movie of 2004.

"Chronicles" is a sequel of sorts to 2000's "Pitch Black," a nifty little sci-fi thriller that found its audience on video and DVD. The film also solidified Diesel's status as the Steven Seagal of the 21st century. Given that many of us felt the 20th century would've been better off without Seagal, whether we need a chrome-domed clone of the same thing remains an open question.

Set five years after the first movie, "Chronicles" opens with escaped convict Riddick (Diesel) on the run from bounty hunters. Only now, there's a bigger problem facing him, something to do with the Necromongers, a mindless group of robotic warriors in Trojan-War drag led by a messianic maniac called the Lord Marshal (Colm Feore). These guys are running around the galaxy destroying entire planets by insisting the indigenous populations convert (to what, I honestly couldn't tell you) or die. Conversion involves a painful process called "mind regression," which renders you a zombie-like slave to the Lord Marshal's will. Or something like that.

According to a mysterious being called Aereon -- a floaty, semi-transparent Judi Dench in an unflattering cocktail gown and an ethereal veil -- Riddick may be The One. Oops, wrong movie. (Writing about this brings on its own mind regression.)

I mean, Riddick may be the only person who can stop the Necromongers. However, being the loner he is, Riddick isn't interested in playing hero -- except for when he stops on a molten-lava planet to rescue Jack, the preteen survivor of "Pitch Black," from a subterranean prison. Hard to believe, but the once-boyish Jack has changed her name to Kyra (Alexa Davalos) and now has Playmate of the Month potential (plus a flawless complexion for someone who's been underground for several years).

Writer-director David Twohy apparently has lost whatever talent made"Pitch Black" work. "Chronicles" is a sci-fi disaster on a par with the notorious John Travolta bomb "Battlefield Earth" -- a "Mystery Science Theater 3000" favorite in the making.

Whatever creativity this high-priced mess has is lavished on the art design. Four-faced towers loom ominously, and one eye-catching structure seems to be made entirely of giant Popsicle sticks.

Diesel dresses like a refugee from a rough-trade leather bar and speaks in a monotonous guttural growl. He doesn't have to do much as an action hero since the fight scenes are filmed in a strobe-light fashion, making it hard to tell what's going on. Every once in a while, the better-done big action scenes --with spaceships and such -- grind to a halt, giving Diesel the chance to utter some abysmal sub-Schwarzenegger quip.

It's absolutely possible to make a terrific, mindlessly entertaining, kill-'em-all-and-let-God-sort-'em-out sci-fi film. "Starship Troopers" remains the gold standard, and there are other good examples, like "Dark City."

If Twohy had cut all the close-ups of his star's very hairy armpits, "Chronicles" would be a good 20 minutes shorter. But it wouldn't be much better.