Pitch Black

Between the tart dialogue, the compelling lead performances, the vivid violence and the stunning cinematography, it's complete and satisfying all on its own.

It's very effective.

Just may be the most entertainingly derivative movie of the millennium so far.

Clever, done with skill, yet lacking in the cerebral imagination of the best science fiction.

This is damaged goods from the opening Poly Gram logo.

Quite shameless in imitating its predecessors.

This half-baked sci-fi horror film, filled with jerky, washed-out, highlighted, blurred and toned imagery, is a tiresome experience.

wait what? The critics don't like this movie too? Oh my God! Since the first time I saw this movie i never forgot it, I always loved it.. when I found out that it was Riddick, I saw the two movies that existed and I became completely addicted! It's such a good storyline, amazing characters. I've always loved sci-fi but this? Is another level. I love it. it's amazing. Very creative. Too good, seriously.

Shipwrecked on a desert planet, the survivors of a doomed commercial spacecraft explore the sharp sand dunes and bleached alien skeletons of a foreign landscape, seeking water and, with luck, the means to escape or send an intergalactic SOS. They aren't many in number, and even that sum soon begins to dwindle as untimely seasons shift and the sky falls into a months-long eclipse, instantly unleashing flocks of wild, hungry native night-hunters from their subterranean lairs. Fortunately, one of the survivors is well-equipped for precisely this scenario. Riddick, a violent prisoner headed for the high-security slammer, boasts extensive combat experience and a set of augmented eyes that work best in the dark. Vin Diesel is effortlessly cool in that part, one which clearly evolved during the writing process to grow from a simple, gimmicky tough guy stereotype into a well-rounded, wonderfully unpredictable instigator who throws the plot over one shoulder and single-handedly hikes it down the home stretch. We don't always like him, but we're constantly intrigued by him, and Diesel (in his breakthrough role) really makes the most of that duality. He's not just grunting and grinding; he's assessing and scheming, too, with the physical performance just as essential as the strong, fluid character writing. The rest of the show is a little more mixed. It's an obviously over-performing low-budget science fiction / horror film, so some slips can be expected. Much of the egregious stuff is masked with low-grade film techniques or by abusing quick jump cuts and extreme close-ups. What serious special effects there are vary from shockingly effective (Riddick's tense, quiet staredown with one of the monsters) to downright bad (all exterior shots of the ship). It's efficient, though, visually ambitious and thematically novel. Those virtues, plus one star-grade acting performance, add up to a bit better than average in my book.

A group of challenged people are cast away to a planet with many wild animals that come out at night. The only normalo is mistaken for a criminal by everyone until they all drop dead, including the screenwriter and the director. It's certainly impressive in theaters, but in retrospect the film is nothing special except as a launchpad for Din Viesel.

Im not sure why this movie has such a cult following, it was painful to watch. 25/100

Aside from Riddick, who is played to perfection by Vin, this movie is your run of the mill creature film that fails to spark interest and entertain. The story is bland, the characters painfully underdeveloped in the first half so it's hard to root for them and want them to succeed as they try to escape from the creatures in the second half. And the first half of the movie is almost ruined by these weirdly bright camera filters that have absolutely no reason for being there in the first place. Pitch Black suffers from a lot of poor creative and writing decisions that bury this movie before we can even get into the thick of it.