Overall Rating
  Awesome: 19.89%
Worth A Look: 35.8%
Just Average: 28.98%
Pretty Crappy: 10.8%
Sucks: 4.55%
12 reviews, 104 user ratings
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| Pitch Black |
by Isobel Sharp
"Always remember to pack the mad killer on interstellar expeditions."
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Okay, so, first it’s like really really sunny? And then, right, it’s like reeeealy dark. And then a lot of people die. Did I leave anything out?A deep space transport vessel, crossing the path of a comet, gets punched full of teeny yet deadly holes, and crashes on an unknown planet. The surviving crew consists of the pragmatic yet spunky Carolyn (Radha Mitchell), who finds herself in charge of a wacky bunch of misfits, including pilgrims on a hadj, prospectors on the search, one antiquities dealer – oh, and a mad killer and said killer’s keeper. Does Carolyn wish she had managed to jettison these passengers and thereby prevent herself from being marooned with them on this hot, sunny rock? Oh yes indeedy she does.
The killer, however, is having a much better time. Riddick (Vin Diesel) takes advantage of the crash to escape (a couple of times) and lurk menacingly in the background. During one of his stints as a free man, one of the prospectors gets killed – was it Riddick? Even better! There are apparently some creepy crawly things living below the ground, who are more than happy to snack on anyone dumb enough to stick their head into their lair. Solution: Stay above ground where it’s safe! The critters seem to prefer the dark, and on a planet with three suns, darkness must be a pretty rare commodity. Right?
You can guess by the title that no amount of suns will keep the lights from going out, and the monsters from coming above ground to snack on the hapless passengers. Riddick to the rescue! Well, sort of – he alternates between being helpful for obscure reasons, and being deadly for more clear ones, while generally being ominous in a vaguely sexy way. As the group gets pared down to a lonely few, Carolyn forms an tenuous alliance with Riddick to get the survivors off-planet. Does he help? Can Riddick be trusted? And most importantly, who will die the goriest death?
The first half of this film is pretty tedious. We rattle through the characters, set the scene, schlep around in the sun, blah blah blah. But when it gets dark, things suddenly get better – dialogue is funnier, action is more action-y – and it’s even occasionally scary. Because the monsters lurk in the dark, we don’t really see them much, but that’s fine – they aren’t really frightening in and of themselves: it’s quantity over quality. The best and creepiest scenes take place in near-darkness, when everything’s scarier because it’s not quite visible, but you know it’s there.
Diesel’s Riddick, once unchained and given something to do, is fun to watch – he so clearly cares almost nothing for anyone but himself, and seems sort of amused at the prospect of his companions getting picked off one by one. Why he even bothers to care about them at all is unclear; we do get a bit of ‘oh poor me, I never had a chance’ from him, but he’s basically just a bad guy we never really understand. That’s not Diesel’s fault, though, and he really does a fine job with a character that otherwise could be flat and pointless. Mitchell’s Carolyn is a bit more nuanced, but not much, and the rest of them play their stereotypes adequately. But then, this is not a film for those seeking snappy dialogue and character development. Some things sneak around, some people die (though not as gruesomely as one might hope), and the effects are fine.This film is for those who absolutely must see everything Vin Diesel’s ever done, or who absolutely must see every horror movie ever made, but that’s about all. In closing: Space is big/Space is dark/It’s hard to find/A place to park./Burma Shave. Words to live by.
link directly to this review at https://www.hollywoodbitchslap.com/review.php?movie=1801&reviewer=291
originally posted: 05/11/02 01:00:04
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Trilogy Starters: For more in the Trilogy Starters series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2016 Boston SciFi Film Festival For more in the 2016 Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival series, click here.
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USA
18-Feb-2000 (R)
DVD: 01-Jun-2004
UK
N/A
Australia
18-May-2000
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