Pitch Black - Film only review
A spaceship called the Hunter/Gratzner is travelling through the cold depths of space, its passengers and crew in stasis when an accident occurs whereby the ship is assaulted by multiple micro-meteorites, killing the captain, and leaving only two surviving crew members Carolyn Fry (Radha Mitchell) and Greg Owens (Simon Burke) whom are forced out of their “sleep”, to pilot the ship to safety. With the ship freefalling through the atmosphere of a nearby planet Fry struggles to control the spaceship and needs to “purge” sections of the ship in order to bring the nose down. She attempts to purge the passenger compartment but is stopped by Owens although she still manages to crash land the vessel keeping her and a few of the passengers alive in the process. One of the passengers being the extremely dangerous criminal Richard Riddick (Vin Diesel) and his bounty hunter keeper Johns (Cole Hauser). And so begins the spectacle that is Pitch Black.
The beginning of the film still leaves me breathless, the visuals used when showing the ship spiralling out of control towards the planets surface as various compartments of the ship were being jettisoned are fantastic, the camera shaking violently, the speakers pushing out oodles of atmospheric noise to put us right in the middle of the crashing ship. You are willing the people on board to survive what seems like a certain-death crash. You are praying that the nose of the ship comes down, you are scared… almost. Whilst the rest of the film isn’t as fast paced as this superb beginning it has set the scene for a clever sci-fi film which has been well directed by David Twohy.
There may have been a few faces that you would have recognised when it was released way back in 2000, but I think most of the cast would be unrecognisable. In certain films I think this is a good idea, you don’t need a well known actor or actress to be on screen in order for us to care about the character, something that is often lost on film makers. Pitch Black is really the film that launched Vin Diesel’s career (even though he was in Saving Private Ryan, who remembers him for that?), and for me it is still his best outing. And what a first outing it is.
Riddick is one mean hombre, a murderer who is being taken back to the slam after escaping, he is brutal, he is tough and he is dangerous but as we see in the film he is not totally devoid of humanity, but even then his humanity is not born out of his love of the human race, for the most part it is about his own self preservation. But nonetheless he is a complex individual with his own agenda and not just a mindless yob.
Cole Hauser as William Johns is almost as bad as Riddick, and in a way he has to be, in order to go out and capture someone like Riddick you would have to be a little bit like that person and so the character of Johns is superb in that, he seems wary of everything, almost constantly on his guard and I got the impression that he has more respect for Riddick than he did for his fellow survivors, a tough guy. And in many ways scarier than Riddick who openly admits what he is.
Another interesting character was played by Keith David. He is Abu 'Imam' al-Walid, a religious man taking three children on a pilgrimage, although I am unsure if they are his children or if he is just taking them to where they want to go. I felt this was an interesting role, we rarely see religion and sci-fi mixing and it made a refreshing change to see it implemented here. It isn’t stuffed down your throat but I felt it a nice touch to the film and it gave it a slightly unique edge, Abu’s dialogue with Riddick is what brings out more of Diesels character.
The last two main characters are Jack (Rhiana Griffith) and Carolyn Fry (Radha Mitchell). Jack is a stowaway who makes an appearance after the crash. After things settle down a little and the group are trying to find some way off the dusty rock Jack attempts to emulate Riddick in terms of looks and dress, I don’t think this was done to suggest any mental illness on the part of Jack as this behaviour seems to suggest in other films (Single White Female for example) if anything it adds a touch of humour. Perhaps that humour or rather the light hearted moments it offered prompted the character to exist or perhaps they needed a younger childlike person to make the audience care more about the group as a whole, something that they felt the three boys with the Imam wouldn’t do. The script never really calls for us to get to know the boys better and so I can only assume that where the boys have a more religious role Jacks lighter moments were felt to give a different element to the movie.
Fry on the other hand is the gutsy flight engineer. She has to dig deep in an attempt to act as the captain, she is haunted by the fact that she tried to jettison the passenger compartment which would have killed all the people that were offering her their thanks for saving them. She certainly grows as a person within the timeframe of the movie and in that she is similar to Ripley from the Alien series, although in my opinion not as good. That is not to say that the acting was bad, but Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley was exceptional and an extremely tough act to follow.
The film really comes into its own after the group discover a long abandoned settlement, they discover that there is about to be an eclipse, something that happens rarely as there are three suns in the sky. Already having come across the creatures they know that something bad is going to happen once all daylight has gone, and we are not disappointed, the creatures that spew out into the night are fearsome beasts which will rip any living tissue to shreds. These creatures have obviously been modelled to some degree around the Alien Queen from the Alien films, especially around the mouth area but they are still quite frightening to watch, more so when there are only a couple of them around. With the group attempting to find a way off of the planet, time is running short and they find that they have to trust in someone that would be either their hero or their executioner, Riddick.
In many way Pitch Black is very similar to Alien, indeed in some reviews I've read it has been accused of being a direct rip off of that classic film and whilst I can see a certain degree of Ridley Scott’s innovative movie lurking not so deep beneath the surface I do think that it is unfair to slot the film as a direct rip off. The special effects are stunning, particularly of the crashing space ship, but the creatures too, and the Australian outback where it was all filmed within 60 days is a great backdrop to the water starved planet, especially when the film is purposely bleached out to give a dry, parched, thirsty look. We also have some fantastic characters with Riddick being the best and we have a compelling story.
As of re-writing this review the special edition version of this film can be picked up for £5.99 at play, which was the cheapest I found it when I searched although all other main retailers will do it, although check prices.
If you want to check out a trailer, IMDB offer several on this link - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0134847/trailers
The special edition has the following extras.
• Audio commentary from director David Twohy with actors Vin Diesel and Cole Hauser
• Audio commentary from the director, producer and visual effects supervisor
• Production notes
• Filmmakers files
• Cast files
• Trailers
• Introduction from director David Twohy
• 'The Game Is On': a look at Riddick's past
• 'The Johns Chase Log': a featurette voiced by star Cole Hauser
• 'The Chronicles Of Riddick' visual encyclopaedia
• 'Dark Fury: Advancing The Arc' featurette
• 'A View Into The Dark': an early look into 'The Chronicles Of Riddick' featuring new interviews with star Vin Diesel and director David Twohy
Overall I would say that Pitch Black is one to own especially for the Sci-Fi fans out there, but also for thriller film fans too and anyone who likes action movies, it has enough of everything to make it a worthwhile addition to your shelf.