Pitch Black
February 22nd 2008 00:28
Category: Videos
Original story by: Jim & Ken Wheat.
Director: David Twohy.
Producer: Tom Engelman
Screenplay by: Jim Wheat, Ken Wheat & David Twohy.
Starring: Vin Diesel (Riddick), Radha Mitchell (Fry), Cole Hauser (Johns), Keith David (Imam), Lewis Fitzgerald (Paris), Claudia Black (Shazza), Rhiana Griffith (Jack/Jackie), John Moore (Zeke), Les Chantery (Suleiman), Sam Sari (Hassan) and Firass Dirani (Ali).
Produced by: Universal Pictures in association with Interscope Communications.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures.
Running Time: 104 minutes. Rating: M 15 .
The first time I saw this film it was at the local cinema, I had some spare cash on me at the time along with some spare time so having a look at what was on offer I thought to myself “Pitch Black – sound’s interesting, think I’ll give that a go.” So into the cinema I went and sat myself down up in the back row with drink and several bags of chips in hand to settle in for what hopefully would be an eventful experience. The first thing that hit me about the movie was the fact that I didn’t know any of the actors the second was the backdrop, the production team obviously were attempting to convey the impression that the setting was an alien world and one which there was a lot of light, from three suns in particular. And as a result this only served to emphasise what would happen later on in the drama and the rationale behind the title of the film. There is a surreal quality to the first part of the film that almost makes it look akin to an old pre-sound film or old photographs from before colour film that have aged with the passage of time. It definitely looked impressive on a big screen, though it does lose a little bit on the small screen.
That was back in the late nineties, 1999 to be precise; years later I managed to get hold of a copy on DVD and gave it a whirl. By that time there had been a sequel “The Chronicles of Riddick” as well as an animated feature and a computer game based around the character of Riddick. Certainly Richard.B.Riddick is a larger than life character who some would say is totally amoral but in my own opinion is more akin to a force of nature than some kind of dangerous psychopath. He doesn’t hide his nature or his past actions behind euphemisms or justifications, the interesting facet is that he never explains why he is the way he is. Killer and escaped convict he certainly is but why he is those things he never reveals and they never come to light in the unfolding drama. A true enigma who is also focused on his own survival rather than having any real regard for his fellow human beings.
Naturally a character like this is an interesting protagonist to have in a film, especially one where survival is the important issue in the story. So the movie opens with a starship travelling on autopilot in the deeps of space, heading to New Mecca and carrying in cryo sleep capsules its crew of three along with forty odd passengers which includes Riddick the escaped convict and his captor Johns. Everything seems to be going on just peachy when suddenly the ship’s path intersects with the tail of a comet and fragments begin to pepper the hull like high velocity projectiles from a chain gun, the hull is breached and in the process the captain killed as his cryo sleep capsule cops the brunt of the cometary fragments. Things start to go downhill from there; the ship is knocked out of its trajectory and begins to indulge in a spectacularly fiery re-entry of a nearby planetary atmosphere. The docking pilot, Fry, attempts to save herself from potential calamity and vent the various passenger capsules all at once but the efforts of her fellow crewmember, Owens, prevents her from taking this course.
The ship endures one hell of a crash landing and in spite of the cockpit screen getting blown out as the vessel careens towards the ground Fry manages to survive the calamity. By the time the few remaining survivors have gathered themselves and collected their wits it would seem that this would be a fairly stock standard survival drama with the added ingredient of an escaped convict on the loose in the crashes aftermath for spice. Fortunately there is a bit more than this, certainly Riddick’s escape is an element within the initial phases of the story but it is only a counterpoint to what else is going to occur. It seems that the strange new world into which the survivors now find themselves marooned has its own mysteries and dangers, big time.
At first the survivors think they only have to deal with lack of water, Riddick and finding a way off this rock and back to civilization. Their ideas start to take a beating when they realise that not only are they on a barren desert world but one in which there are three suns adding all that much more to the heat and dehydration and making the need to find water just that more imperative. One of their own, Zeke vanishes suddenly whilst on grave digging detail and naturally everyone thinks its all down to Riddick’s actions. An investigation into the situation reveals that this is not the case by a long shot, instead the planet has some decidedly nasty indigenous life forms and they are the ones responsible for Zeke’s demise. A discovery of an abandoned settlement seems to bring some hope to the survivors especially when water and a skiff is discovered, but the mystery is what precisely happened to the inhabitants of the outpost, where did they end up?
From this point on even though they have discovered water and a means of escape things actually start to go down hill for the survivors. You see the ship they were on has crash-landed onto this planet at precisely the worst time possible for anyone, every twenty two years the three suns are eclipsed by a vast gas giant planet with double rings and total darkness reigns. It is when this precise event occurs the local life forms; deadly aerial carnivores emerge from their hiding places beneath the surface. They cannot handle the sunlight or bright light, much like vampires it burns and damages them. Just as the survivors get back to their crashed ship to recover power cells to power up the skiff is when the eclipse occurs and darkness covers the land.
With a literal swarm of these carnivores now between them and the skiff and their one vehicle being unable to move due to it being solar powered its going to be a tough time to make it back to the outpost. This is the moment when the mettle of the various characters in this little coterie will be tested, can they group together and survive a nightmare that defies their wildest imaginings. The core of this movie seems to revolve around the concept of the duality between light and dark, yet portraying it as something more as a yin yang construct rather than sticking to a traditional light = good, dark = evil. Riddick is a character who has an inner darkness yet he is not wholly evil, just as his captor Johns works on the side of the angles yet is not a moral paragon. And then there is the basic paradigm that in the light things can be seen, they can be dealt with and quantified whilst in darkness all is unknown, unseen and there are potentially horrors lurking in its depths. In Pitch Black this is an absolute, not some vague notion of psychology or morality, once darkness descends upon the world then horrors do emerge and embark upon a wave of carnage and destruction.
The fusion of the genres of horror and science fiction works well in Pitch Black giving a nice tight story with no real loose ends that plagues the audience as they wander out from the cinema or turn off the DVD player. All in all it makes for good entertainment and isn’t that what everyone is looking for when they rent or buy a DVD or go to the cinema? I know I certainly am and this movie filled this criteria nicely.
Director: David Twohy.
Producer: Tom Engelman
Screenplay by: Jim Wheat, Ken Wheat & David Twohy.
Starring: Vin Diesel (Riddick), Radha Mitchell (Fry), Cole Hauser (Johns), Keith David (Imam), Lewis Fitzgerald (Paris), Claudia Black (Shazza), Rhiana Griffith (Jack/Jackie), John Moore (Zeke), Les Chantery (Suleiman), Sam Sari (Hassan) and Firass Dirani (Ali).
Produced by: Universal Pictures in association with Interscope Communications.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures.
Running Time: 104 minutes. Rating: M 15 .
The first time I saw this film it was at the local cinema, I had some spare cash on me at the time along with some spare time so having a look at what was on offer I thought to myself “Pitch Black – sound’s interesting, think I’ll give that a go.” So into the cinema I went and sat myself down up in the back row with drink and several bags of chips in hand to settle in for what hopefully would be an eventful experience. The first thing that hit me about the movie was the fact that I didn’t know any of the actors the second was the backdrop, the production team obviously were attempting to convey the impression that the setting was an alien world and one which there was a lot of light, from three suns in particular. And as a result this only served to emphasise what would happen later on in the drama and the rationale behind the title of the film. There is a surreal quality to the first part of the film that almost makes it look akin to an old pre-sound film or old photographs from before colour film that have aged with the passage of time. It definitely looked impressive on a big screen, though it does lose a little bit on the small screen.
The ship endures one hell of a crash landing and in spite of the cockpit screen getting blown out as the vessel careens towards the ground Fry manages to survive the calamity. By the time the few remaining survivors have gathered themselves and collected their wits it would seem that this would be a fairly stock standard survival drama with the added ingredient of an escaped convict on the loose in the crashes aftermath for spice. Fortunately there is a bit more than this, certainly Riddick’s escape is an element within the initial phases of the story but it is only a counterpoint to what else is going to occur. It seems that the strange new world into which the survivors now find themselves marooned has its own mysteries and dangers, big time.
At first the survivors think they only have to deal with lack of water, Riddick and finding a way off this rock and back to civilization. Their ideas start to take a beating when they realise that not only are they on a barren desert world but one in which there are three suns adding all that much more to the heat and dehydration and making the need to find water just that more imperative. One of their own, Zeke vanishes suddenly whilst on grave digging detail and naturally everyone thinks its all down to Riddick’s actions. An investigation into the situation reveals that this is not the case by a long shot, instead the planet has some decidedly nasty indigenous life forms and they are the ones responsible for Zeke’s demise. A discovery of an abandoned settlement seems to bring some hope to the survivors especially when water and a skiff is discovered, but the mystery is what precisely happened to the inhabitants of the outpost, where did they end up?
From this point on even though they have discovered water and a means of escape things actually start to go down hill for the survivors. You see the ship they were on has crash-landed onto this planet at precisely the worst time possible for anyone, every twenty two years the three suns are eclipsed by a vast gas giant planet with double rings and total darkness reigns. It is when this precise event occurs the local life forms; deadly aerial carnivores emerge from their hiding places beneath the surface. They cannot handle the sunlight or bright light, much like vampires it burns and damages them. Just as the survivors get back to their crashed ship to recover power cells to power up the skiff is when the eclipse occurs and darkness covers the land.
With a literal swarm of these carnivores now between them and the skiff and their one vehicle being unable to move due to it being solar powered its going to be a tough time to make it back to the outpost. This is the moment when the mettle of the various characters in this little coterie will be tested, can they group together and survive a nightmare that defies their wildest imaginings. The core of this movie seems to revolve around the concept of the duality between light and dark, yet portraying it as something more as a yin yang construct rather than sticking to a traditional light = good, dark = evil. Riddick is a character who has an inner darkness yet he is not wholly evil, just as his captor Johns works on the side of the angles yet is not a moral paragon. And then there is the basic paradigm that in the light things can be seen, they can be dealt with and quantified whilst in darkness all is unknown, unseen and there are potentially horrors lurking in its depths. In Pitch Black this is an absolute, not some vague notion of psychology or morality, once darkness descends upon the world then horrors do emerge and embark upon a wave of carnage and destruction.
The fusion of the genres of horror and science fiction works well in Pitch Black giving a nice tight story with no real loose ends that plagues the audience as they wander out from the cinema or turn off the DVD player. All in all it makes for good entertainment and isn’t that what everyone is looking for when they rent or buy a DVD or go to the cinema? I know I certainly am and this movie filled this criteria nicely.
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