Who needs hands when your feet can kick up these kinds of sword skills?
The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) Photo: The Chronicles of Riddick | Outrunning the Sun/Universal Pictures YouTube
There’s something extra swagger-y about a Major League hitter who can step up to the plate, point a bat toward the outfield, and live up to the boastfulness of such a high stakes, grand slam promise when the bases are loaded and the game is on the line. With that dad-like comparison out of the way, that’s more or less what Vin Diesel does in this ice-cold scene from 2013’s Riddick (now streaming on Peacock!), which Universal Pictures is teasing afresh as the dark sci-fi action film enters its 10th year in release.
Chained by his bounty captors but possessed of the knowledge they need to safely escape an unhinged horde of alien mud demon monsters (not to mention his gift of special night sight), Richard B. Riddick (Diesel) calls the shots of his own impending escape, even as he’s still in chains. It’s the sort of brazen braggadocio that leaves chief inquisitor Santana (Jordi Mollà) sneering in bemused bewilderment…especially since he and his crew are the ones who’re actually holding the firepower.
Sure enough, no mere machete is a match for Riddick’s speedy Furyan reflexes, with Diesel’s quietly confident antihero — the whole time still in chains — kicking into action for one of the gnarliest five-second kills we’ve ever seen. A quick flick of the feet sends Santana clear across the room, followed by a lightning-fast flash of steel as Riddick (somehow) uses his boot to dash off a kick of Santana’s dropped machete with deadly-aimed precision.
Like a dart, the weapon daggers toward its target to score a wicked decapitation that Santana couldn’t possibly have seen coming. Before Santana’s head comes toppling off, there’s even just enough time to spare for Riddick — ever the courteous house guest — to kick an empty bin across the way to catch the bloody mess. After all, no one wants to be on gore cleanup patrol after this whole unpleasant businesses is over with.
As action scenes go, it’s a jaw-dropping vignette of violence in a space franchise that’s renowned for being chock full of them — and it’s also one of the cleverest, cockiest, and, hands down, the fastest. In all, Diesel starred as the sure-footed space outlaw in four Riddick franchise films, beginning with 2000’s Pitch Black all the way up through 2013’s Riddick (the movie we’re looking at here).
Catch both The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) and Riddick (2013) anytime at Peacock, while nabbing all four films in the epic sci-fi series at your on-demand streaming platform of choice.
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