

Pitch Black
Starring Vin Diesel, Radha Mitchell
Directed By David Twohy
USA Films, Rated R, 2000
Running Time: 1 Hour 47 Minutes

By Sean Molloy

LIGHT SPOILERS

Pitch Black, a new entry in the sci-fi action category of "people vs.
space bugs", manages to avoid the pitfalls that lots of other films in
this genre inevitably stumble into.  Far too often I've witnessed
these things spiral headlong into a black hole of stupidity, where
scenes that are supposed to be cool and shocking instead wind up
inducing groans and laughter.  Recent victims of this phenomenon
include Event Horizon and Alien Resurrection - both are films that had
promising buildups, and both wound up building towards events that
were just plain ridiculous.  So I'll say this much for Pitch Black -
it never crosses the fine line into the well-traveled territory of
sci-fi cheesiness, and for that I am grateful.  Unfortunately, it
tends to tread firmly on the safe side of that fine line, rarely
managing to create those moments of uber-cool that would put it on a
level with Aliens, the reigning champ of the people vs.  space bugs
film.

When people set out to battle space bugs, I'm more than willing to
suspend logic and accept plot contrivances - Pitch Black is guilty on
both counts - if it makes for a promising set-up.  Sure, have a crew
of space travelers crash land on a tri-sunned planet just as it has
it's only night in 22 years, that doesn't bother me.  And give this
crew of advanced space explorers two blowtorches and a couple
glow-sticks as their sole sources of light, I have no problem with
that.  Have a convict who can coincidentally see in the dark and has
mysterious motives, why not?  And sure, have this planet populated by
an inexplicable species that is hurt by light on a planet that doesn't
ever have a night except for this one convenient moment...  Never mind
that such a species in such a habitat doesn't make a lick of
sense... why would they have evolved on the planet in the first place?
What the hell do they eat?  There's an implication that they're
cannibals, but anyone who's taken a single science class knows that a
population can't sustain itself like that.  You can certainly come up
with some far-fetched answers and explanations on your own, but in the
end, it just plain doesn't matter.  Just go with it, cuz the
contrivances here are outweighed by the potentially cool situations.
And that's really what you're here for, now isn't it?

Alas, potential is really all we get.  Pitch Black has its share of
moments, mostly occurring in the first half, but when I walked away in
the end, it felt as if a lot of good ideas had been greatly wasted.
The film opens with a spectacular crash sequence, akin to the horrific
plane crash that that opens Alive.  A later scene that occurs when the
suns are still shining finds the reluctant Captain Fry (Radha
Mitchell) underground, tethered to a rope trailing behind her in a
series of caverns, protected from the things lurking in the dark only
by spotty shafts of sunlight.  Moments like these are exquisite, but
unfortunately they do not come often enough.

Love it or hate it, if there's one thing The Blair Witch Project
accomplished, it was to make us remember how powerful simple
suggestion can be in a suspenseful situation.  Pitch Black,
thankfully, adheres to this forgotten school of thought.  These
creatures lurk in the darkness; when we see them, we see just enough
to assemble their forms in our heads.  A frightening moment can be
easily ruined by a bad computer graphic, and Pitch Black never
succumbs to overplaying its hand in this department.  The special
effects never overstep their bounds, and we're treated to that rarity
in the modern age of blockbuster filmmaking - restraint.  The
flip-side to this coin is that a select few of the action sequences
were too dark and confusing to make out what was happening.

The planet these folks land on looks beautiful, the film has been
overexposed and saturated with different colors to effectively
simulate what light from three suns would look like.  The moment of
the eclipse is absolutely beautiful, and stands as one of the most
striking visuals I've ever seen in a film like this.  The whole film
somehow feels refreshingly like a British, independent art- house take
on the sci-fi monster movie.

But eventually it all just kind of fizzles out.  By the third act,
frankly, I was more than a bit bored.  Not too long after the sun
sets, the action starts to plod generically along, and the thrills are
too few and far between.  The focus seems to dwell too much on the
only fairly interesting crew, and there are simply too many of them
around for us to care about their problems.  When a supposedly key
'revelation' is made about the kid traveling with the group, you kinda
shrug and wonder why it was even mentioned.  The deep-voiced and aptly
named Vin Diesel, who voiced the Iron Giant and here plays the shady
convict Riddick, is admittedly extra cool.  His psychological
interplay with Captain Fry almost got to the point of being
interesting, but couldn't quite make it over the hump.

The film also missteps by providing us with an ending that is, well,
just sorta there.  When I walk into a movie like Pitch Black, I expect
something epic to close things out.  But I suppose, at the same time,
I'd rather have it just kind of stop than see things ruined with
something ridiculous and laughable (see, once again, Event Horizon and
Alien Resurrection for examples of how not to handle an ending).  For
a couple of minutes, Pitch Black seems like it's on its way to exactly
ripping off the conclusion to Aliens - and I do mean exactly.  But at
least it has the wisdom to stop itself from going in that direction.

In the end, I was thankful to have seen an example of a sci-fi action
thriller that never once seemed overtly stupid or absurd... they are a
rare breed indeed.  There's enough unique and good stuff here that
Pitch Black certainly isn't a waste of time.  Sadly, it's just a very
well-crafted waste of potential.

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