Slow Action, Mindless Sci-Fi

Rating: 3/10 (11 November 2000)

Pitch Black can't decide what it wants to be: an intriguing, smart sci-fi film or a fun, relentless action flick. It tries to too little to be both and fails to be either.
When a spaceship carrying dangerous criminal Diesel crash lands on three-sunned, desolate planet, the crew attempts to find a way off. However, they discover the seemingly-lifeless planet is inhabited by vicious, deadly, nocturnal creatures, and they have unluckily landed in time for a total eclipse.
The story has promise, since we expect the crew of misfits will band together and try to fend off the aliens in a hugely exciting way. Instead, what we get is a film that plods along for half of its way with bantering, lame dialogue, unappealing characters and long, stretched out pointless conversations about planning and gathering supplies. We are also introduced to the crew of the ship, all one-dimensional characters who we could care less about. Just for the heck of it, we also see children in danger.
Director by David Twohy, Pitch Black could have benefited from more chaotic, gripping scenes of the crew attempting to survive the hideous, stealthy beasts. Instead, he tries to make the film brainy and it fails miserably. We are treated to excruciatingly dull dialogue interspersed with long pauses, outbursts of profanity, and gore aplenty. Vin Diesel, the only actor amongst the sun-bleached cast, is the only one who comes off as somewhat intriguing and appealing, but it's mostly because of his physical attributes. The special effects also fall curiously flat, with the aliens coming off as cartoons.
Pitch Black could have been a wild, thrilling, even scary movie if Twohy had decided to make the dialogue terse, added more action sequences, or given the characterizations more weight. Instead, the film decides to plod along, falling prey to the Hamlet syndrome: that is, thinking too much and not doing anything.
3 out of 10