2/12/00: There is a whole sub-genre of sci-fi that Pitch Black falls into. This being the ship full of various characters, in deep space, getting into trouble. Usually the trouble involves a hostile alien of some sort. Alien being the first and still the best of these films, the success of that film is also to blame for all these copy-cat films. Most of the Alien rip-offs are just plain bad, but in the case of Pitch Black you may be pleasantly surprised.

We are immediately thrown into the crashing of a transport ship. Most of the passengers are dead, communications are out, and the ship is beyond repair. The survivors are now stuck on a barren desert planet with three suns, and what seems to be no life. (Of course like almost all these movies, they were lucky enough to crash on a planet with breathable air.) Now the questions are; Where can we find water? How do we get off this God forsaken planet? What's that thing eating Dave?

A bunch of relative unknown actors play the various generic characters that show up in these films. Vin Diesel (Saving Private Ryan), is Riddick an escaped convict, you know a real tough guy. He has this neat eye adaption he received from a jail-house doctor, that gives him the ability to see in the dark. This comes in real handy, seeing how the film title is Pitch Black. The other characters include; the wily woman ship captain, the law man who's bringing Riddick in, a antiquities dealer who happens to have a lot of native weapons aboard, a deeply religious man and his 3 sons, a tough chick who's good with tools, and of course a kid that idolizes Riddick. Most we hardly learn their names, and who's main purpose is being food for the mysterious aliens.

I read that director David Twohy (The Arrival) turned down the use of larger name actors, so he could use the extra money to up the production values for the film. This was very smart for a lower budget film, and it really shows on screen. There are some impressive f/x in this film, although the creatures are often easily identifiable as computer generated. The photography and editing of the film are quite cool, MTVish, but well done. He uses more types of lighting than I think I've ever seen in one film, ranging from film blow out bright, to very low light situations. The three suns of the planet each cast a different type of light, and in the dark the characters use anything and everything to keep the lights burning, from a blow torch to glowing insects.