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Pitch Black (Widescreen Unrated Director's Cut) Customer Reviews (16 - 18 of 69 Reviews)

Won't keep you riveted, but worth watching
A transport ship crash lands on a dead planet with 3 suns. Among the survivors is an escaped murderer who was being taken back to prison. They discover an abandoned camp which includes a ship they hope to use to get off the planet. They also discover the planet is inhabited by nasty meat-eating creatures that live in darkness. Figuring they will be ok as there is no night on a planet with 3 suns, they are dealt another blow when a model in the abandoned camp indicates an eclipse is coming. When it starts, the planet it plunged into darkness for a long time and the millions of creatures come above ground. The movie becomes a story of survival as they use any source of light they can find to fend off the creatures to get to the ship and leave the planet.

I like the concept of this movie and it does a pretty good job of telling the story although it becomes predictable once the creatures emerge and the survivors have to depend on sociopath Riddick to lead them to safety. Once the creatures are brought into full view they're not that interesting and their is no real suspense. Except for one character, you pretty much knew who was going to live and who was going to die. Overall a worthwhile action/scifi/horror movie.

I'm writing this long after people have already bought it...
thanks to my subscription to a very effective mail-order movie rental place, I was able to check out pitch black recently and it darn sure is not the trash i expected it to be. but it is darn sure problematic.

there is a ship flying through space and one of its cryo-sleeping inhabitants is a fellow named riddick, a prisoner played by vin diesel. when something goes horribly wrong, the ship has to crash-land on a planet with three suns. among the few survivors is a hardcore cop named johns who has been tracking riddick for some time. in essence, it turns out that they are mortal enemies. the least of their problems to come.

the female captain, riddick, johns, a french wino, a young boy and a quartet or trio (i forget) of muslims are left to trek the barren desert planet in search for life and water in the scorching hot sun. just when being in the hellish heat turns into a major hindrance, it just so happens that every 44 years (as learned from the scientifics from the deserted labs of those who were there before) the suns eclipse and nighttime prevails for a long time. a really long time.

and that's when the nocturnal, homocidal aliens emerge...for a long time. and they eat people for a very long time.

you might want to remember the alien films during this whole thing, but i am sure that the filmmakers thought of that. for one thing, these nuts are cooler than the aliens....aliens. they can fly and even their offsprings kill. the only problem with them is that they are hurt by light, even flashlights. pretty cool premise, i thought. a nice intelligent cat and mouse deal involving a murderer whom you have to depend on for your survival. i loved all that cool stuff immediately.

here are the problems.

for one, with a movie like this, you have to dumb yourself down and just go with it. but for chronic intellectuals, the very idea of a ruling race of nocturnal aliens previaling against so much life against sunlight makes no sense to me. and if they had to evolve into such a race, there is no way there was enough time of darkness on the surface of the planet to evolve. if there is more to it, like maybe they are underground dwellers and only come onto the surface to feed, like they've been hibernating all this time, we don't get it in the film. there are no explanations to anything intelligent, just nice asides that keep the film going. i can deal with that. dumb down.

as far as the dvd is concerned, there are no really great bells and whistles. there is a preview of the chronicles of riddick video game and a couple of other really lame things. luckily, this is an unrated version of the film. the acting is average, but the standout is vin diesel. there are moments when i cringe at his acting and others where im awed at his coolness or loving his pressence. he is the reason to watch this thing.

him and the gratifying death scenes.

Not Much Clarification
This was the second Riddick movie I've seen. I watched it in the hope that the sequel I saw first would make more sense. No such luck. This one does, however, make more sense by itself.

The premise is of a crash landing on a forbidding planet. One of those to survive is an escaped convict with a bounty. The trouble is that the local wildlife is not very friendly and seems to take a positive delight in turning survivors into casualties. They appear to be large creatures, somewhat reminiscent of bats, vampire tendencies and an aversion to light and human beings. That is where Riddick comes in handy since he is decidedly unhealthy to the "bats".

The story was fairly predictable but done well enough. I did not think it was great but it apparently appeals to some. Don't expect it to be a great setup for the sequel, though.

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