Right so I've been thinking a lot to myself these last few weeks about how I have an extremely low work ethic and therefore by the time that I decide to make a review of a certain movie that movie has already left cinemas. So realising that reviewing movies has become a sort of hobby of mine. It makes sense to just review movies that I personally want to talk about, be it classics from the past or monstrosities that I found on the dusty shelves that time forgot. Occassionally I may even find a small gem of a movie that takes my interest. So I had thought about making reviews of say, Wall-e or Happy Feet for starters but I think if I am going to start this new pattern of mine right I would like to go no further than what I consider to be among the best movies of the year 2000.... Pitch Black.
.....yeah that's the one.
Pitch Black is sort of in the same club as Event Horizon and the Alien saga wherein it is a science fiction horror set up. However it does differ from some standard horror aspects which I'll explain as I go on. The story mainly focusses on an escaped convict named Richard B. Riddick (played by Vin Diesel in his starring role) who has been recaptured and is aboard a ship heading for Earth (presumably). Riddick is more or less the main focus of this picture, he is considered to be the 'most dangerous criminal in the galaxy' charged with multiple murder, theft and other such niceties of that nature. Riddick's main physical feature is that his eyes are extremely light sensitive and therefore he wears dark shaded goggles all the time. This means he can see quite comfortably in the dark. He has a very nasty animal-like killer instinct and is very much a nomad with no compassion to speak of. The reason I liked him in all honesty is that this masculine, murderous, badass killer's first name is Richard. Richard is usually a name I would associate with a dude who works as an accountant all day and is in his early fifties, jaded and alone boring and unlikeable.... so yeah a switch.
Anyways, the ship Mr. Riddick is happily locked up on also has many other people on board including a Musilm Holy Man, a refined British antique trader, an Aussie stereotype, ANOTHER Aussie Stereotype, a young stowaway named Jack, and a shady officer named Johns who has been tracking Riddick down. Now with such a large number of people on board it is only natural that something should go wrong.... and it does. The ship gets locked into the gravitational pull of a nearby planet and starts to go down. During the commotion the captain of the ship dies in Cryo Sleep and the two remaining officers desperatley try to keep the ship stable. One of them a young blonde woman named Carolyn Fry (played by Rhonda Mitchell, an actress that I adore) decides that the only way to get the ship level is to let loose the passanger part of the ship which in turn would kill all the people on board. However the other officer manages to prevent her from doing so, though he(other officer) dies in the resulting crash.
When the dust settles the ship crashes and everyone on board survived and now mut work together in order to get off the planet or even just survive. However shortly after everyone gets to know each other Riddick escapes... and thus everyone gets panicked.
Turns out the planet has a few surprises of it's own. First of all there are three suns and second of all, all life on this planet appears to be dead. Huge skeletons of giant animals are found in massive piles all over the landscape with no explanation as to how it happened. Also as luck woul have it, of all the places on this planet they could have crashed, they had to crash right next to a nearby human settlement and in turn there is a ship nearby that is almost fit for transport that just needs refuelling.
While all this is going on, panic based on the threat of Riddick is at an all time high... however that ends when one of the characters... the Aussie stereotype, gets pulled into a dark cave by an unseen critter and completely eaten alive. Riddick has the bad luck to be nearby and he gets captured and accused of killing the Aussie. However Riddick claims innocence telling them to 'look deep in the cave'. Carloyn does look into the cave and what she finds is evidence of an unknown but extremely hostile alien life form.
Riddick is then appointed protecter of the group as part of a deal with him and Johns. Soon afterwards another member of the team is lost when they explore the compound nearby... people then figure out that the creatures in question seem to fear light as they retreated from the sun. So therefore if they just stick to daylight they should be fine.
But that's not the case is it, never is. As coincidences go this is one hell of a doozy as Riddick and Co arrived on the planet just in time for the annual solar eclipse that would completely shroud the planet in darkness. Thus allowing the creatures from the cave to escape. Sure enough they soon find themselves stuck in the dark, the people start getting eaten by the aliens and only Riddick can protect them. And throughout the whole movie there is evidence that Riddick my be learning to regain compassion for humanity but at the same time there is never a guarentee of that. Riddick is in a word: Unpredictable.
So, that's my plot analysis... this isn't exactly the most amazing and unique plot the world has ever seen but in some ways it was the way it was put together that makes it so great. The aliens are unique and awesome to look at, flying around like pterodactyls and shrieking. There are some genuinely funny moments mixed in, like an occassional quip from Riddick, there is also very decent characterisation of both Riddick and the rest of the cast, namely Carolyn Fry as the woman who Riddick develops an attraction to. With Pitch Black you get the whole thing, aliens, a dark and ominous lead with actual personality, a cast of supporting characters, descent structure and some pretty good music too. Even it's faults, like how some of the supporting cast are basically run down stereotypes isn't that bad of a fault because it's kinda fun to rip on the stereotypes. So overall I might well say that yes I enjoyed Pitch Black.... but as far as Riddick goes this is where I get off.
I much preferred Riddick when he was just a loony with shiny eyes, not a Furian.
Was this review helpful to you?
Feedback appreciated.
.....yeah that's the one.
Pitch Black is sort of in the same club as Event Horizon and the Alien saga wherein it is a science fiction horror set up. However it does differ from some standard horror aspects which I'll explain as I go on. The story mainly focusses on an escaped convict named Richard B. Riddick (played by Vin Diesel in his starring role) who has been recaptured and is aboard a ship heading for Earth (presumably). Riddick is more or less the main focus of this picture, he is considered to be the 'most dangerous criminal in the galaxy' charged with multiple murder, theft and other such niceties of that nature. Riddick's main physical feature is that his eyes are extremely light sensitive and therefore he wears dark shaded goggles all the time. This means he can see quite comfortably in the dark. He has a very nasty animal-like killer instinct and is very much a nomad with no compassion to speak of. The reason I liked him in all honesty is that this masculine, murderous, badass killer's first name is Richard. Richard is usually a name I would associate with a dude who works as an accountant all day and is in his early fifties, jaded and alone boring and unlikeable.... so yeah a switch.
Anyways, the ship Mr. Riddick is happily locked up on also has many other people on board including a Musilm Holy Man, a refined British antique trader, an Aussie stereotype, ANOTHER Aussie Stereotype, a young stowaway named Jack, and a shady officer named Johns who has been tracking Riddick down. Now with such a large number of people on board it is only natural that something should go wrong.... and it does. The ship gets locked into the gravitational pull of a nearby planet and starts to go down. During the commotion the captain of the ship dies in Cryo Sleep and the two remaining officers desperatley try to keep the ship stable. One of them a young blonde woman named Carolyn Fry (played by Rhonda Mitchell, an actress that I adore) decides that the only way to get the ship level is to let loose the passanger part of the ship which in turn would kill all the people on board. However the other officer manages to prevent her from doing so, though he(other officer) dies in the resulting crash.
When the dust settles the ship crashes and everyone on board survived and now mut work together in order to get off the planet or even just survive. However shortly after everyone gets to know each other Riddick escapes... and thus everyone gets panicked.
Turns out the planet has a few surprises of it's own. First of all there are three suns and second of all, all life on this planet appears to be dead. Huge skeletons of giant animals are found in massive piles all over the landscape with no explanation as to how it happened. Also as luck woul have it, of all the places on this planet they could have crashed, they had to crash right next to a nearby human settlement and in turn there is a ship nearby that is almost fit for transport that just needs refuelling.
While all this is going on, panic based on the threat of Riddick is at an all time high... however that ends when one of the characters... the Aussie stereotype, gets pulled into a dark cave by an unseen critter and completely eaten alive. Riddick has the bad luck to be nearby and he gets captured and accused of killing the Aussie. However Riddick claims innocence telling them to 'look deep in the cave'. Carloyn does look into the cave and what she finds is evidence of an unknown but extremely hostile alien life form.
Riddick is then appointed protecter of the group as part of a deal with him and Johns. Soon afterwards another member of the team is lost when they explore the compound nearby... people then figure out that the creatures in question seem to fear light as they retreated from the sun. So therefore if they just stick to daylight they should be fine.
But that's not the case is it, never is. As coincidences go this is one hell of a doozy as Riddick and Co arrived on the planet just in time for the annual solar eclipse that would completely shroud the planet in darkness. Thus allowing the creatures from the cave to escape. Sure enough they soon find themselves stuck in the dark, the people start getting eaten by the aliens and only Riddick can protect them. And throughout the whole movie there is evidence that Riddick my be learning to regain compassion for humanity but at the same time there is never a guarentee of that. Riddick is in a word: Unpredictable.
So, that's my plot analysis... this isn't exactly the most amazing and unique plot the world has ever seen but in some ways it was the way it was put together that makes it so great. The aliens are unique and awesome to look at, flying around like pterodactyls and shrieking. There are some genuinely funny moments mixed in, like an occassional quip from Riddick, there is also very decent characterisation of both Riddick and the rest of the cast, namely Carolyn Fry as the woman who Riddick develops an attraction to. With Pitch Black you get the whole thing, aliens, a dark and ominous lead with actual personality, a cast of supporting characters, descent structure and some pretty good music too. Even it's faults, like how some of the supporting cast are basically run down stereotypes isn't that bad of a fault because it's kinda fun to rip on the stereotypes. So overall I might well say that yes I enjoyed Pitch Black.... but as far as Riddick goes this is where I get off.
I much preferred Riddick when he was just a loony with shiny eyes, not a Furian.
Was this review helpful to you?
Feedback appreciated.
