"The Chronicles of Riddick"

But Diesel's not really the center of this overcrowded spectacle, or anyway not as much as he should be. After a few seconds of Vin, Twohy will stage one of his fast-edit, impossible-to-follow action scenes (I know, I know, influence of MTV and video games, blah blah blah) or some guys with drama-class accents wearing late medieval armor will show up and explain to the inhabitants of a conquered planet that they must join a wacky religious cult called the Necromongers or be killed, and the essential dumbness of the whole enterprise shines through unavoidably.

I definitely can't do that movie-critic thing of complaining about how Hollywood movies never have stories anymore; "The Chronicles of Riddick" has Mixmastered the plots of "Star Wars," "The Lord of the Rings," the biblical tale of Moses and Pharaoh, the Borg episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "Macbeth" and whichever "Alien" movie it is where Sigourney Weaver is the only chick on a prison planet. This is too much story by a factor of about five, maybe, but one of the things that makes this movie essentially likable is the way it just keeps piling more stuff on the sandwich, in the manner of old grade-B science fiction.

If you don't like the plot about ex-con Riddick (Diesel) outrunning the bounty hunters who've been chasing him since he got off the "Pitch Black" planet, just stay tuned. Soon we're off to the peaceable, Islamic-seeming planet being conquered by the undead, quasi-Christian Necromonger warriors (ooh -- social commentary!), where some transparent entity played by Judi Dench has summoned Riddick and his weird electronic-blue eyes because, well, because he's a badass, I guess.

Elegant Colm Feore plays the messianic chieftain of the Necromongers, and mullet-sporting Karl Urban (Éomer from "Lord of the Rings") is his moody lieutenant with a beautiful, scheming wife (Newton). Apparently Colm had some kind of near-death experience and saw something really amazing called the "Underverse." I don't know if that's a Victoria's Secret support garment or a Polish liver sausage, but either way I don't want to see it. But before we can work out what's up with them, the bounty hunters are back and we're off to the prison planet, where the tomboy named Jack that Riddick saved in "Pitch Black" has grown up into an incarcerated hottie named Kyra (Alexa Davalos). "Jack's dead," she tells him. "She was weak." Whereas, as we all know, Kyra is a name that suggests prison-yard macho toughness.

What am I forgetting? A prison break to the planet's surface, where it's far below freezing at night and a flesh-melting 700 degrees by day. A couple of fuzzy wart hog-hyena critters, vicious to you and me but cuddly as little schnauzer puppies with Riddick. A row of humans being turned into Necromongers, strung up like suits at the cleaners with Matrix-style jacks jammed in their necks.

And then, rather than resolving any of these incoherent plotlines, "The Chronicles of Riddick" just stops dead. Twohy and Diesel (who co-produced) evidently believe that they can will this movie into becoming a multipart zillion-dollar fantasy franchise through sheer preposterousness and bogus grandeur. I don't know about that; I suspect people will show up and have a good time, but might not care enough to come back. Which is kind of the problem with Vin Diesel in general, isn't it?

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