Saturday, November 08, 2014

Pitch Black

(2000) ***

Survivors of a space accident are marooned on a harsh, barren planet with three suns, populated by ravenous, nasty creatures who avoid sunlight. One of the survivors is hardened criminal Riddick, whose eyes have been surgically adapted to see in the dark.  This will come in handy, as the planet is about to go into a total eclipse that will leave the survivors at the mercy of the indigenous creatures.

I enjoyed a lot about this movie but felt let down by some of the cheesier dialogue and by the ending, which didn't really have as much monstery action as I was expecting. Liked the scary-dark premise, thought Vin Diesel did a good job as Riddick, and enjoyed the creepy night monsters, but ultimately didn't love the whole package. I know some of my blogmates love this movie and am happy to hear dissenting opinions... feel free to let me know what I am missing!

3 comments:

Catfreeek said...

This was my favorite of the Riddick films, the creatures are great and I can totally see your point on the lack of monstery action.

DKC said...

I'm sorry you didn't love it as much as I did - but I always respect a different opinion! I remember being bummed by the ending but that's more because I'm sentimental.

Octopunk said...

I watched this for 'thon a few years ago but didn't get to the review because I knew I was going to go on and on about it (and I will someday, I got a ton of screenshots). I don't know if I can defend the ending or the whole package per se but there are several moments when the movie just owns itself so perfectly.

-- The crash landing is one of the best spaceship crashes in cinema.

-- The eclipse scene is just brutally good from start to finish

-- Within that same scene, the part where Riddick sees the surge of baby monsters pouring out of those vents and says "Beautiful."

Malevolent

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