Plot summary

Set in the distant future, a spaceship carrying some 40 people, mostly ones wanting to settle on other planets from their own, hits a meteor shower and crash lands on a distant planet killing all but twelve of them. The survivors, led by the second-in-command Carolyn Fry ('Rahda Mitchell' ), find themselves on a hot and arid landscape with constant sunlight from three orbiting suns. Fry not only must help the survivors find food and water, but contend with a deadly criminal, named Riddick (Vin Diesel), who was being transported to a prison cell on their destination. But every 22 years, the planet's three suns go into a total eclipse for a month where darkness brings out the planet's real inhabitants; large, reptilian, vampire-like creatures that come out and dominate the surface in total darkness, killing and eating all life. The Fry and her people then must cooperate with Riddick, who has surgically enhanced eyes to see in darkness, to lead them to safety and off the planet before they all become dinner for the creatures.—Matthew Patay