Pitch Black (2000)

2 out of 4

Starring: Vin Diesel, Radha Mitchell, Cole Hauser, Keith David, Lewis Fitz-Gerald, Claudia Black

Director: David Twohy

Time: 108 mins

Pitch Black is another example of the stupid, on average, 3 months-after-the-USA release schedule that plagues Australia and the rest of the world. I first saw a trailer for this sci-fi/horror film sometime in January or February (I can't remember now because it was that long ago), and recall thinking this film could be quite good. Excitedly, I searched for the release dates on the Internet, and eventually found that it was to open here in May. May! Talk about raining on my parade. What's worse is that Pitch Black was actually filmed in Australia, and films shot in Australia tend to open here fairly close to the US release. Examples include The Matrix (1999) and the upcoming Mission: Impossible-2, which opened, and will open, respectively, within a week of the US. Pitch Black was released in North America on February 18. Enough said.

Well, enough of my rant, and onto the movie. A group of people on a commercial space journey experience a mid-flight disaster and crash land onto a barren planet that is surrounded by three suns. They find no sign of life, except for a long-abandoned mining operation and numerous skeletons of gigantic creatures. Caroline Fry (Radha Mitchell), the pilot, William Johns (Hauser), a policeman transporting convicted murderer Richard Riddick (Diesel), and the other survivors, including antiques dealer Paris Ogilville (Fitz-Gerald) and Imam (There's Something About Mary's Keith David), a devout Muslim, must find a way to repair their ship and leave the planet. Before long, they realise they are not alone.

Pitch Black is very much a B-grade version of Aliens. The desolate planet, the abandoned human outpost, and creatures that swarm and attack during darkness, are some of the similarities this film shares with the James Cameron classic. While nowhere nearly as exciting or as well-written, Pitch Black does have a couple of tense moments, but these scenes are spoiled by needlessly stupid actions on the part of the characters. Sure, humans react in strange ways under stress, but do all movies with a smidgin of horror have to reinforce this fact? Look at the recent Scream 3 for more examples of stupid character actions. Another failing is that there's little exposition. The background of the ship, and more fleshing-out of its passengers, would have been nice, though it's understandable why this is left out. We're meant to feel as lost and as bewildered as the survivors. Only Riddick and Johns seem to have a bit of history, but there's little further development of their relationship. This is a creature feature, and the majority of the film's budget seems to have gone into depicting them.

Speaking of which, the creatures are appropriately alien-ish and bat-like, with huge, sharp teeth, wings, and a fondness for flesh. However, they're not as scary as the species in the Alien series, which were cunning, had acidic blood, and endless slime. The attacks by the monsters in Pitch Black also seem fairly random. One moment they're assaulting our motley group endlessly, and the next, there's a clear passage. Whether the creatures have intelligence or not is not established, and so we're left wondering: where are they? Where have they gone?

Australian actress Mitchell acquits herself well as the replacement "Captain" that the survivors look to to get them off the planet, but it's Diesel who catches the eye with his murderer-turned-reluctant hero. The deep voice, and the surgically enhanced eyes that sees everything in the dark, give him a personality that none of the other passengers possess. Hauser is nondescript, David nonplussed, and the others unmemorable. Still, this is not a film that was designed for Academy Award honours, so the acting is adequate.

Director Twohy (better known as a scriptwriter for films like The Fugitive and Waterworld) seems to have a liking for alien movies, having previously directed the alien invasion thriller The Arrival. Here he employs high contrast filters that leeches most of the colour out of the first half of the film, presumably to show the harshness and desolation of the landscape. The second half is shot almost completely in the dark. The special effects are decent, belying the fim's modest budget, but most are effectively masked by the darkness. The most impressive scene, visually, is when an eclipse turns day into night, and the creatures come out of their burrows.

Though a fairly derivative sci-fi/horror film, Pitch Black is a more interesting effort than that recent sci-fi disaster, Mission to Mars. The second half may be drowned in shadows and a few implausible situations, but the first half was moderately intriguing, and may be worth at least a video rental if you're a fan of the genre.

(c) Joe Wong (21 May 2000)