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Review by Susan Granger
0 stars out of 4
A disabled spacecraft crash-lands on a harsh desert planet at the
beginning of this tedious sci-fi disaster. Among the grungy survivors
are the female pilot (Radha Mitchell), a Muslim priest (Keith David),
a prissy antiquities dealer (Lewis Fitzgerald), a convicted killer
with huge muscles and surgically-enhanced laser vision (Vin Diesel)
and the bounty hunter (Cole Hauser) who is bringing him to justice.
Squabbling, they're all vying for leadership power - until they're
terrorized by armies of voracious, carnivorous, nocturnal creatures
who are fiendishly determined to devour them. Australian
writer/director David Twohy (The Arrival), working with writers Jim
and Ken Wheat, lifts elements from the Alien films, among others, and
treacherous, pterodactyl-like creatures from Godzilla. The formulaic
dialogue is all their own and there's little tension in the episodic
plot which involves a solar eclipse. The only commendable originality
is in the stylish lighting, utilizing various filters, and
cinematography, drawing on several types of film stock which
complement the strange, ominous planet with its intense heat from
three different suns and bizarre desert landscape. However, on a
parched, cloudless planet supposedly devoid of all water, a sudden
downpour which drenches the hapless survivors is one of the most
obvious discordant occurrences which is never explained. And if Vin
Diesel's voice sounds familiar, you might recall that he did the title
character in The Iron Giant. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10,
Pitch Black is a dismal 1 - a noisy, nightmarish waste of time and
money, the producers' and yours.
Copyright © 2000 Susan Granger
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out of 4
