My local paper, the Atlanta Journal-Constipation, gave The Chronicles of Riddick an F, which tells me the reviewer was just out to vent. She had a good time skewering the flick, and I can see how she would feel all the ammunition the big-budget sci-fi adventure was packaged just for the nattering nabobs of negativity. Maybe she’d rather be seeing a lower budget, more “serious” (read: liberal) movie like Saved!. But why see Saved! when I can get a much more action-packed film about religious zealots that doesn’t insult my faith?

I don't care how negative the review is; how often do you get the chance to get two classic Shakespearean actors together in Vin Diesel and Dame Judi Dench saving the universe? Am I right? Okay, you need more, I get that.

	They may be evil, but Necromongers are cuddly to snuggle up to.

There were bad signs, though. First off, Riddick isn’t showing at my local stadium-seating multiplex, but at an older theater with seats built for people with 28-inch waists and leg room for people five feet tall. At the counter, no fresh hot dogs, the nacho cheese tasted weird and my Diet Coke was syrupy. There were about 25 people in the theater, 23 of them male, so the crossover appeal may not catch on.

Thankfully, Riddick is good fun for what it sets out to be, which is not epic-scale grandeur, but rollicking fun that is visually compelling.

If you accidentally walked in, thinking the title was misspelled and is supposed to be a biopic on tennis phenom Andy Roddick, you may be excused. Although I have no doubt that Vin Diesel could serve up a mean volley.

I’m sorta understanding all the politics of the story. It at least sounds good when Dame Judi Dench does the voice-over. It goes like this:

There is a unity of humans called Necromongers who are like Borg-meets-Vger from Star Trek: The Motion Picture-meets Spock’s brother from Star Trek V, super-soldiers out to convert people into their “release your painn” cult and find their maker in the Underverse. That’s a heaven-ish place where I guess they don’t have to wipe out entire planets anymore. After they’ve destroyed every civilization and converted/killed all the people in their path, of course.

The Necromongers arrive with brute force, a spacey blitzkrieg overwhelming all defenses with huge ships, small ships and these 1,000-foot towers planted into the ground, featuring stoic faces on all four sides, as if they’re always looking, always aware. Spooky.

Director David Twohy has some practice with this world, having helped write this sequel to his previous project, Pitch Black, which became a cult hit back in 2000. Without any expectations, I came away pleasantly surprised, so the idea of a sequel away from the horror slant of the original was intriguing.

In that review, I refer to Vin Diesel as “pure entertaining badass” as the title character. He's also a sweet-voiced poet who wears bright colors and spends his spare time gardening. Just kidding. But he does have a way with words, but only one or two at a time. Diesel always finds the time for a humorous quip amid the rubble, and can find a way out of any situation with his cut physique and due to the luck that none of the people he fights hand-to-hand ever seem to have a gun to fire at him.

Halfway through, the film turns into an escape-from-prison flick, straight out of the harsh underground Klingon world of Star Trek IV. Looks like Riddick is leaving Kirk behind this time.

The Necromongers are messing with Riddick’s mind and he’s “never been so popular” since there are prophecies about him that he just doesn’t give a flying fig about. The convict just wants to save himself and his gal pal, Jack, from Pitch Black, who was 12 then but a now grown up, changed her name to Kyra (Alexa Davalos) and is amazingly good-looking despite not having seen the sun in five years. Well, not that she’d want to see sun, being imprisoned on Planet Crematoria, which is a non-subtle way of saying that the 700-degree temperatures on the surface will fry you in seconds.

Dench isn’t just the narrator, she’s an ambassador of a race called the Elementals, a calculating non-religious essence who are there-but-not-there, gone with the wind as their bodies look ghostly in movement. I’m told she’s an “ethereal being,” whatever that means. “Ethereal” is an adjective, meaning “light and delicate, especially in an unnatural way.” Um, okay, that works, too.

The big baddie leader of this traveling freak show, Lord Marshal (Colm Feore), is half-alive, half-something else, after visiting the Underverse. The only man to do so, he’s able to move fast in this swooshy effect, an evil ethereal being. Their motto is simple: “You can keep what you kill.” No, that can’t backfire.

Actually, I may have missed a few points when I spent ten minutes trying to figure out who Vaako was, until I finally realized it is Karl Urban, Rohan rider Eomer of Lord of the Rings, sans the beard and long scraggly hair.

The look of Riddick is dark but remarkable, and if you want some color Thandie Newton goes through a dozen different outfits as Vaako’s wife, a lady of the elite, a power-hungry Hillary Clinton for the evil overlords.

The AJC review would have you believe that "we have our first serious contender for Worst Movie of 2004,” which is pure silliness. The film isn’t perfect, but it doesn’t strive to be a classic, either. Riddick isn’t profound and won’t change your life, but you shouldn’t hate it either.

It's a popcorn flick, and that's good enough.