‘Pitch Black’ was a sleeper hit in the spring of ’00, setting off the career of Vin Diesel and establishing a now in-flux franchise. It remains a fun ride with absolutely no pretense about its B-movie thrills and action. Diesel carries the film on his formidable shoulders as anti-hero Riddick.
For puzzling reasons, Vin Diesel and co-writer/director David Twohy decided to take all of what people responded to in ‘Pitch Black’ and throw it out for the sequel, ‘Chronicles of Riddick’ - which attempted to surround Riddick in a convoluted ‘Dune’-like mythology. Whereas ‘Chronicles of Riddick’ is overstuffed, ‘Pitch Black’ aims for eye-one-the-prize efficiency.
Taking a few pages from any number of successful sci-fi pics (most notably the first two ‘Alien’ films), ‘Pitch Black’ begins on a transport ship doing its thing in deep space. When some rogue meteors tear through the ship, pilot Fry (Radha Mitchell, attempting to channel Sigourney Weaver and coming close enough to be effectual) has no choice but to crash-land on an unspecified, scorching planet.
With most crew and cargo lost to the wreck, only a few including Fry, square-jawed cop Lt. William Johns (Cole Hauser) and prized criminal Riddick (Vin Diesel) survive and have to figure out how to survive on a seemingly abandoned, barren planet with three suns.
Some civilians also survived the crash and all cower in fear of the glowering Riddick whom soon becomes suspected of murder when one of the civilian survivors turns up dead.
Riddick becomes the least of everyone’s worries, however, when it’s learned that a three-sun eclipse is close upon them which will result in mysterious, night-bound creatures released into the year-long night.
Like the recently reviewed ‘Ghosts of Mars’, this is another take on that old ‘Rio Bravo’ Western standby where the good and the bad will have to band together to rid of a greater evil.
The creatures, an unholy amalgam of winged dinosaurs and hammerhead sharks, swoop up from the cavernous depths of the planet and will feast freely in the dark but will shy away from any light.
This sets up a nervous sequence where Fry, Riddick, Johns and the civilians set out into the dangerous, black landscape from the internal safety of the wrecked ship with a limited supply of light. Their only option is to try and reach a massacred outpost with a power source for a ship that was previously discovered.
This trip results in a power struggle between Fry, Johns and Riddick with all having particular secrets to share and not everybody will make it off the planet alive, with the aliens not being the only cause of death.
While these characters are somewhat predictable in motivations and how they are written, the cast really elevates the material, particularly Diesel who found a role he was made for – the gruff, lethal anti-hero.
The gimmick of the film, an eclipse on a planet filled with night-bound creatures, is a strong one and enhances the flick from merely derivative sci-fi to effective horror. As the troupe lights their away across the inky-black geography with hundreds of hungry, snapping creatures just outside the last faint grasps of the light their carrying, an inevitably anxious mood develops.
'Pitch Black' arrives on Blu-ray a few years after the HD-DVD and gets the same 1080p/VC-1 2.35:1 encode that, despite the comparatively low-budget, looks decent in high-def with an inherent grain that gives it a real film look.
Veering from deep blacks to the super-golden hues applied to give the impression of three suns, detail and clarity is also quite good. A DTS-HD lossless master audio 5.1 track is provided and does a commendable job provided an ambiance-heavy soundtrack.
Ample special features start off with two audio commentaries. The first features director Twohy, Vin Diesel and Cole Hauser and the second is a tech track with Twohy, producer Tom Engelman and visual f/x supervisor Peter Chiang.
The director/cast commentary is, unsurprisingly, the more fun of the two. Four featurettes are provided that run a combined 13 minutes. Two making-of fluff pieces and one that looks at the Dark Fury dtv animated film and one that takes a look a the old XBOX game.
Some HD exclusives include U-Control which features ‘Pitch Black Raw’ which is a PiP of the blue-screen footage. Something similar was on the ‘300’ disc and a standard making-of PiP footage. ‘John’s Chase Log’ is a peculiar feature that sees actor Cole Hauser narrates some text screens throughout the film that follows his characters state of mind.
‘The Chronicles of Riddick Visual Encyclopedia has Hauser narrating three different short videos on different aspects of the ‘Pitch Black’ universe. Kind of cool but too short. The disc is also BD-Live enabled.
Slightly clichéd, it’s still a cool sci-fi B-movie with a great gimmick and a charismatic star-making performance from Vin Diesel. The BD stats are great with video, audio and some cool special features rounding out a nice package.
Pitch Black [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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