Director: David N. Twohy
Starring: Radha Mitchell, Vin Diesel, Claudia Black, Cole Hauser, Keith David, Lewis Fitz-Gerald, Rhiana Griffith, John Moore, Simon Burke

- Reviewed by Linda

Every now and then—actually, it seems more often than not—a new sci-fi movie gets a buzz: "The best sci-fi since Aliens!!!" The sci-fi geeks (read: pretty much the whole high-tech industry) gets whipped into a frenzy, I finally go see it, then... I'm inevitably disappointed. Why do so many sci-fi movies fall short?

Pitch Black had promise. A cargo spacecraft crash-lands on a mysterious planet (the crash sequence is actually outstanding... quite scary and impressive!). Some of the cargo happens to be passengers wanting a lift, as well as a bad ol' convict (Vin Diesel... cool name!) who was being transported to a high-security prison. You have the usual motley crew, an ethnically diverse group: an inept intellectual, a kick-ass woman, an asshole, etc, plus a no-nonsense unsentimental pilot, played by Radha Mitchell (!) previously seen in the art-house movie High Art. 

So what's the twist? The planet has three suns (the daylight shots are washed out in oranges and blues, depending on where the suns are in the sky—a cool effect!). The group quickly figures out that there is a rare eclipse coming very soon, and when it does, nasty big pointy flying nocturnal monsters are going to fly out of their caves and eat them. Hence the conundrum:  must fix ship before pointy beasties get to them first. 

Pitch Black has a pretty cool premise, but couldn't quite hold the momentum and originality of the opening scenes for me. There were several big ol' plot holes, and several convenient coincidences (Diesel's convict happens to be able to see in the dark because of some previous operation on his eyes; the group very quickly figures out the eclipse is coming; etc). Diesel and Mitchell make the strongest impressions, but of course there's no time to get attached to any of the other characters (the monsters need food!).

What starts out as somewhat intriguing plot, ends up totally falling into the quagmire of sci-fi movie clichés. Unfortunately, a good crash scene and quite-creepy monsters does not a good sci-fi movie make.

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