Subject: Review: Pitch Black (2000)

From: Dennis Schwartz <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 20:41:19 -0000

PITCH BLACK (director/writer: David Twohy; screenwriters: Jim and Ken
Wheat/based on a story by the Wheat brothers; cinematographer: David Eggby;
editor: Rick Shaine; cast: Vin Diesel (Riddick), Radha Mitchell (Fry), Cole
Hauser (Johns), Keith David (Imam), Lewis Fitz-Gerald (Paris), Claudia Black
(Shazza), Rhiana Griffith (Jack/Jackie), John Moore (Zeke), Simon Burke (Greg
Owens); Runtime: 108; USA Films/Polygram; 2000) 

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz 

When a spaceship crash-lands on a planet of three suns that is plagued by
darkness as a solar eclipse hits, the survivors must fight the nocturnal,
batlike, alien creatures. These aliens avoid the light and strike when it's
dark. The survivors include a dangerous murderer serving a life sentence in
maximum security, Riddick (Diesel), who has surgically implanted eyes that shine
enabling him to have night vision. He also has awesome muscles that are pumped
for action. He wore specially fitted contact lenses to give him that shine job
look. 

The survivors include: Riddick, who is in chains as he is being transported to
another prison; the cruel guard, Johns (Cole Hauser), who it turns out has a few
flaws in his personality -- which include a morphine habit; and, the
spacecraft's landing pilot, Fry (Radha Mitchell), who becomes the captain when
it's discovered that the captain's throat had been slashed. These two leaders of
the plan to get off the dark planet argue all the time, and trust among the
survivors becomes the issue. Fry had her moment of cowardice when landing the
plane, as she almost panicked and pulled the cord to eject the passengers. This
is something Johns uses against her. The other survivors include: a preachy
Muslim imam, a holy man, talking up a storm about God; a prissy English
antiquities dealer whose wine collection is used as lighting fuel to get them
off this wasteland, when it's covered in pitch darkness. And a boy called Jack
who turns out to be a girl named Jackie, as discovered through the efforts of
Riddick's nose for female hormones. 

This sci-fi formula action flick is noteworthy for its splendid cinematography,
as it was filmed in the Australian Outback, and for its innovative editing cuts.
The story line left me gasping for more light and the acting left me in the dark
searching for one line of dialogue that wasn't shrill or trite. No actor was
provided with a challenging part, but Diesel uses his powerfully muscular
presence and deep baritone voice to dominate this action story. He comes to say
one-liners such as this: "They did not know who they were f*cking with!" He says
this to the dead aliens after he puts them out of their misery, but he might as
well have spoken it to a dead audience. 

The writer/director David Twohy (The Arrival) tries to bring some intelligence
to the story, but the script is too predictable to keep one interested in it.
The characters ranged from a shrill Radha to a cartoonlike Diesel, making it
easy to root for the aliens to possibly, against all formula film odds, pick off
all the survivors of the spacecraft. But three do survive and, in my opinion,
that's three too many! This film didn't have a clue about what point it wanted
to make. It was particularly unclear how good or bad they wanted to portray
Diesel's character, as he kept changing from bad to good guy at every alien
sighting. By the film's end I had an empty feeling, knowing I saw another
special effect sci-fi film that couldn't bring on a story. 

REVIEWED ON 7/4/2001     GRADE: C- 

Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews" 

http://www.sover.net/~ozus 

[email-masked] 

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED   DENNIS SCHWARTZ 

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X-RT-RatingText: C-