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For my review, I wrote one for Pitch Black, and I am very proud of it :)

Pitch Black – Scary, Sexy, A Perfect Example of Human Nature

“They say that most of the brain shuts down in cryo-sleep. All but the primitive side. The animal side. No wonder I’m still awake.”

This is the first line of Pitch Black, an incredible thriller by director David Twohy, that starts out seeming to be a cheesy science fiction movie, but turns out to be a story of inner conflict in one man, with a slight aspect of science-fiction/horror.

In Pitch Black, Vin Diesel plays Richard B. Riddick, an escaped convict who had been recently captured by a bounty hunter (Cole Hauser), and is taken on a space ship heading toward outer galaxies, stowing away for the trip home. Unfortunately, the ship has a freak accident and crash-lands on a foreign planet. Co-pilot Carolyn Fry (Radha Mitchell) and the other survivors of the crash explore the new planet, and find an escape pod that was left behind by previous visitors to the planet. However, the vessel is out of power, and before they can re-fuel it, they find out that they are not alone on the planet; huge, bat-like carnivorous creatures are the only thing still alive there, and they are hungry for fresh meat.

The good news is these new creatures are harmed by light, and there are three suns on the planet so there would always be day. The bad news? The crew has arrived just in time for a total eclipse of all three suns. To repair the old ship and escape the planet, they must rely on the permanently nocturnal vision and dangerous fighting skills of Riddick, and scramble for any form of light they can find. Riddick, meanwhile, is having his own struggle for life; will he kill them all and escape by himself, or will he rejoin the human race and make sure as many of them survive as possible?

This movie was close to one of the best movies to come out in the year 2000. The monster scenes are very tense and scary and leave squeamish viewers afraid to turn out the light at night. But despite the after-movie paranoia that some get, Pitch Black has some of the best monster special effects and design ever in movie history. Character development is well-formed, from terrifying, dangerous, confused Riddick to Jack(Rhiana Griffith), an enthusiastic youngster whose life goal is to be like Riddick, to some characters who only appear for a few minutes.

The first moments of the eclipse are probably the most intense moments in the movie, as the characters struggle to keep their solar-powered sand can running, until they realize it’s too late, and they watch swarms of monsters soaring out of the caves like a swarm of bees. They are forced to barricade themselves in their crashed vessel, but not before losing one of their group, Shazza(Claudia Black), and the suns finally vanish completely behind the giant planet passing over them. Character reactions to the whole scene(Jack desperately polishing the hood of the sand can to keep the solar turbine moving, Riddick watching in amazement as the creatures soar into the sky, Shazza panicking and jumping right into the monsters’ path) were performed superbly, and the special effects of the planets moving over the suns and the lighting effects as the suns were blocked out added to the intensity, letting character and viewer alike know all too well that their only source of protection against these giant beasts was fading.

Pitch Black is an incredible movie, but no movie is perfect. There were some aspects that could be worked on. First, there was a minor, but very noticeable continuity error, when Diesel forgets to lift Riddick’s sunglasses, which protect his strictly nocturnal eyes, before peering into a darkened vessel to check for monsters. Also, there were several scenes that were cut from the film(which are available on the director’s cut on DVD) that should not have been cut, as their removal suppresses signs of Riddick’s reluctant return to humanity(Riddick hesitantly picks up a piece of equipment that Shazza offered him but he refused it and dropped it on the ground).

Despite a few problems, I give Pitch Black a nine out of ten, and recommend it to any fan of science fiction horror who doesn’t want cheesy.