Horst in Translation ([email protected]) "Blindsided" is a 2013 short film that takes place before the so far latest entry to the successful "Riddick" movie franchise. It was directed by Bonner Bellew and written by David Twohy, who also worked on the scripts of the "real" films. This one here is animation, very generic superhero animation and occasionally looks far older than it actually is. But retro animation has never been my cup of tea exactly. The story wasn't clear to me either. It's the usual bad guy vs good guy and an ounce of betrayal by an apparently near one. It's maybe a good watch if you enjoyed the full feature live action movies, but I personally cannot recommend it. The best thing about it is still that Diesel and Urban voice the main characters they also portray in the films. Other than that, thumbs down.

bob the moo The movie Riddick is a very high budget fan film and I quite enjoyed it as such even though it had its limits and is a bit indulgent in its love of its cool main character – it is also much longer than it needed to be. However it could have been longer since the material in this short film was originally included in the film. In Riddick we see him as head of the Necromongers but rapidly he is removed; there are hints to more material here but it is an area edited down to nothing apart from a few shots. Riddick Blindsided uses that material to create this short film.The plot see Riddick realizing he is slipping and not seeing the punch coming. It is based on story-boards which were created by the film and it is an odd mix of audio which has clearly come from the filmed material that wasn't used, over animated story board. The mix is interesting but not wholly successful. Visually it has a certain cool quality to it, and for fans I guess it is nice to see the story boards, however personally I did not care for the way it sort of moved but didn't always move. Specifically the character movement – in some areas they are expressive (eye brows for example) and can move but in other ways they are still and just a drawing. The style is cool but it looks a bit odd and isn't helped by the use of audio from the film.The narration works well (probably because we are used to a stern and static Vin Diesel while we hear his words) but for the rest the delivery of the actors and the music and sounds of action sequences sit oddly with the mostly static images. It was hard for me to shake off the feeling that they really should have just used the material that they shot and made it a standalone short in the same way – and I'm not sure why they made half the decision but not the other half. It is still a little curio for fans but it is not a brilliant animation and it always feels like it would have been better to just use the live action material which had been shot already.