Alerte noire

The spaceship Hunter-Gratzner crashes on a desert planet. Pilot Carolyn Fry (Radha Mitchell) tries to take control after the captain is killed. Bounty hunter William J. Johns (Cole Hauser) is transporting prisoner Richard B. Riddick (Vin Diesel). There are also holy man Abu 'Imam' al-Walid (Keith David) and his young charges, antiquities dealer Paris P. Ogilvie, runaway Jack (Rhiana Griffith), John Zeke Ezekiel and Sharon 'Shazza' Montgomery (Claudia Black). They discover that the planet's 3 suns align to have a nightfall every 22 years and creatures from below rise up to massacre every creature on the surface. They are forced to rely on the killer Riddick and his night vision.

This is great smallish sci-fi horror. Radha Mitchell does a nice Ripley. This reminds me a lot of Alien which I consider one of the greatest movies ever. It's got good desolate settings. Vin Diesel is the Man. This starts as an interesting character that turns into something great. The creature feature plus the darkness make this even better.

Let me waste a moment of your time to explain how I approached this film. 1st I dismissed the trailers out of hand because the film appeared to be an uncredited remake of Aliens, which I consider to be one of the weakest films in the Alien series. Stupidly continuing to dismiss the film after I heard positive things about it from people whose opinions I trust, I missed the theatrical run completely. I then became hooked on Farscape, in its 3rd or 4th season at the time, and found Pitch Black on cable one night around bed time - so I said "oh why not, at least it has Claudia Black in it." Soon, I recognized Keith David, and began to realize that Vin Diesel, Radha Mitchell and Cole Hauser could all act (why this should surprise me, I do not know). I was captivated. I have now remained captivated for four years. I just watched the film for the 3rd or 4th time, and I still love it.

This is not an art film, not an independent, and its not entirely original, but where it fails to break a lot of new ground, it utterly succeeds in providing interesting, realistic characters, hard-driving action in the medium of a compelling but simple plot, and non-stop entertainment; an absolutely beautiful environment with tastefully rendered special effects. Sound to good to be true? Don't take my word for it... see it for yourself.

The film also highlighted the charisma of the now somewhat iconoclastic Vin Diesel, introducing the character of Richard Riddick. Diesel would go on to star in the somewhat Riddick-ulous Chronicles thereof (which I also enjoyed, though recognizing its rather huge flaws) and is now something of a legend. Diesel is so charismatic, so big, and so interesting to watch that it is easy to ignore the fact that he is not only a talented actor, but a smart one too. Checking out the DVD version of Pitch Black, with the audio comments on might just blow you away.

The film is about the crew of an inter-system transport ship stranded on an unknown planet after a crash-landing in which their captain was killed. The new commander is inexperienced but bright and heroic (Mitchell), but she is caught between two dominant and dangerous personalities - a bounty hunter with secrets (Hauser) and a dangerous criminal who has been surgically altered to see in the dark (Diesel). Is that all? Of course not - the planet is inhabited, and the inhabitants are hungry.

As unoriginal and improbable as some of this may be, Pitch Black is beautifully filmed, well told, and very nicely performed. Don't expect to learn anything, and don't expect to have to think a whole lot, but do expect to have fun with this modern sci-fi action classic.

I will admit, I was already a fan of Serenity, Riddick Chronicles and all that, so I did go into this film with a bit of predetermined anticipation. On the flip side, I'm not always that much of a Vin Deisel fan, in that he is somewhat mono-dimensional in his range of characters, but for the embodiment of Riddick, he does fit perfectly. As for the story and how it plays out, the pace is good, not too encumbered with gratuitous special effects and all that, but where it does fit, the CGI is well done and appropriate.

The one really glaring technical defect in this story is how everyone just gets out and starts walking around, breathing in the air without the slightest concern for differences in the atmosphere, microbes and so on, but this is a common flaw that is often somehow glossed over in many such stories, so I can't harp on that detail too much.

As for Radha Mitchell, she is smokin' hot here, not in a ridiculous or frivolous way, but as her tough, seasoned interplanetary merchant marine ship's captain character "Fry", she nails it perfectly. If anything, she very much reminds me of Andrea Osvart (see her as the Hungarian assassin "Gilda" in the film "Two Tigers").

Now, if these two ladies ever appeared together in a film, I would drop everything and go check that out in a heartbeat . . . but I digress.

In any case, I have no trouble with granting 8 stars to "Pitch Black".

The opening scene of this movie is pretty incredible. I've seen a number of sci-fi movies with great special effects but my roommate and I looked at each other after the opening sequence and he said plainly, "sensory overload." The plot of the movie is pretty simple but the nice thing about this sci-fi movie is that it lets the audience figure out most of the technology for themselves instead of wasting time to "subtly" explain it. The creatures in this movie are also very interesting. You don't get a really good look at them until about two thirds of the way through. Overall, a very entertaining movie.

The 2000's great times for movies, the CGI is opening the possibility for new ideas, combine that with some great actors and you get Pitch Black a Great movie for the time.

The Director did a great job I could not find any mistakes so he gets a 10⭐ The actors did a nice job, maybe some improvements here and there but nothing major they get a 8⭐ The story is unique and fresh for the time with allot of focus on the surviving element and the unknown situation, maroon on a random planet with a convict on the lose is a fresh idea for the time and it gets a 9⭐ The effects are in the early stages, the CGI was just starting to make waves so from a modern standard it gets a 4⭐

This is a Sunday night movie with friends and family with some heavy popcorn and juice!!!

ENJOY!!!!