Black Beauty (Pitch Black (DVD))

Member Name: Whitehorse

Product:	Pitch Black (DVD)
Date:	06/07/03 (168 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Tense, Good special effects, Good story

Disadvantages: They don't make use of the lovely Claudia!, Cribbed from Aliens

I remembered going to see Pitch Black at the cinema and I remembered I liked it but as is usual for my brain which refuses to store anything but the most necessarily of facts, I had completely forgotten the story itself. I had vague recollections but little more. In an effort to avoid the sludge of Saturday night TV (after 'Strange' of course) I settled down with a borrowed video to watch Pitch Black again.

Cutting his teeth in his first lead role, Vin Diesel plays Riddick the possibly psychopathic killer being transported under heavy guard on the good ship Hunter-Gratzner . He's mean, he's dangerous, he's built like the proverbial house. Apparently he is eye candy for the girls (but doesn't do it for me I'm afraid!). Hunter-Gratzner however, is a cargo ship carrying 39 passengers and some rather valuable cargo. All asleep whilst travelling in deep space, the passengers get a rude awakening as their ship disappears off it's flight path and then crashes into a planet in the vicinity of the constellation of Taurus. Feisty acting Captain Carolyn manages to land the ship but not without considering dumping the majority of the passengers first. The human's drive to survive is one of the main themes of the movie. Carolyn doesn't want to be the Captain but with the real Captain and first officers dead she has to take the part.

Whether the ship was sabotaged is one of the questions we never really get an answer to. It becomes a moot point as the remains of the crew first deal with the fact that Riddick has managed to escape his chains, their ship is a wreck and there doesn't seem to be a great deal of water on the barren desert of a planet they find themselves on. This is a place where trees on the horizon become great skeletal graveyards of giant dead creatures not unlike our dinosaurs. Finally the group discover a base but not a soul can be found living there. In a room full of shadows sits a model of the plane
t and the three suns that surround it. Some hairy encounters with some half-seen creatures later, Fry realises the planet is about to move into an eclipse - an event that happens once every 22 years. By this point Riddick is already the object of a great deal of suspicion and fear, the object of awe by a young boy called jack and the least of their problems as everyone realises the creatures on the planet hate the light and love the dark. Cue eclipse and a billion hungry aliens.

Pitch Black is unashamedly cribbed from the Aliens films. Even the creatures remind us of the big bitch from Alien 2 (and I don't mean Sigourney). None of this seems to matter though as Pitch Black despite it's unoriginality manages to build a tense movie with a pacey script and some excellent special effects. Made on a budget that's just plainly embarrassing, Pitch Black shows just what you can do when you get an adequate cast, director and writer. You don't necessarily get a brilliant film but you do get something highly watchable and entertaining.

Director David Twohy had already done some fine work on the Warlock films and Waterworld (even if the latter was utterly abysmal as far as story was concerned), so we do get some fascinating shots of the desert with that bleached out look which makes you want to drink water as your watching. The set itself is dramatic with the giant bones and strange termite like structures that prove to be home to the dreaded aliens.

Wheat brothers, Jim and Ken do manage to put together a script that keeps the story being told. Again it isn't hugely inventive and they seem to have tried hard to get that one memorable line such as 'I'll be back', and 'make my day'. I don't think they really manage to pull that off but there's the occasional line that will make you smile if not laugh. They do manage to put a little bit of a twist on the will they won't they survive theme so kudos to t
hem.

The score is by Graeme Revell who has some excellent credits to his name such as Dune. It definitely enhances the feel of the movie and fits well with the camera work. It has that primal heartbeat 'I'm in danger' feel to it.

Radha Mitchell plays Carolyn well and manages to give the character some depth despite the fact that her script doesn't give her a lot of room to manoeuvre. Quite impressive really seeing as she's ex Neighbours chaff. Vin Diesel also works adequately as Mr. Beefcake and I do have to say that I came out of the show thinking 'I want to have eyes like that!'. For reference Riddick has had a surgical procedure on his eyes that gives him the ability to see movement in the dark - hence the interesting special effects.

If I had to complain it would be the poor use of the utterly gorgeous Farscape actress Claudia Black (to whom the title of this piece is dedicated). Trying not to give too much away here but Claudia fans may be disappointed to find that she doesn't really make her presence felt and that the casting director didn't spot that perhaps she could have played Carolyn even better that Rhada. Not to mention the fact that she's called 'Shazza'! Long live Aeryn whatever the networks say!

If you are a general fan of sci-fi I would definitely put this down on the one to watch list if you haven't already. Despite the fact that it's low budget and laughably unoriginal it manages to get away with it by producing something pretty slick, tense and highly entertaining.

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