Sci-Fi for the regular guy

Rating: 6/10 (10 December 2004)

Spoilers Sci-Fi films are pretty much anathema to me with a few exceptions (Alien & Aliens are two films that immediately come to mind), but I watched "Pitch Black" anyway because it came highly recommended by several people. Directed by David Twohy ("The Arrival") and starring Vin Diesel, it was a film I ended up enjoying with little criticism.
"All you people are so scared of me. But it ain't me you got to worry about now" is pretty much the understatement of the year, uttered by Richard Riddick (Diesel), a prisoner being transported with 39 others to New Mecca, another world that is in the process of being settled. When the ship crash lands along the way, leaving about ten survivors, Riddick manages to escape his captor, William Johns (Cole Hauser) sparking a manhunt on an unknown and unusual planet that has three suns. What they soon realize is that they have landed on a planet that is about to undergo a total solar eclipse which will bring thousands of light-shy man eating flying creatures out into the darkness. When Riddick soon resurfaces and agrees to help them try to restart an abandoned ship (from the last human feast that landed on the planet) it becomes a race against time before all of the lights go out. Unfortunately, time runs out before this happens, and they find themselves prey for the creatures as they try to make it off the planet.
Stylistically, "Pitch Black" is pretty slick. The use of the color filters was great, and the editing, for the most part, was pretty good. The only thing I thought got really old were the stupid quick edits of two people looking at one another (it was very reminiscent of bad Japanese television shows) or when someone would turn around to look at Riddick and it would be a quick edit of "Riddick is there to the right! Now quick to the left!" Those were supposed to be arty shots, and they fell flat  but the basics were good. I thought that the events surrounding Jack were completely ridiculous; I felt suddenly transported back to a Judy Blume novel, but again, it's Sci-Fi  I give it a little more latitude. The CGI was surprisingly good, and the actors (being throwaway characters anyway, this is a Sci-Fi movie after all) were decent. Unfortunately, a big deterrent for me is that I can't understand a damn word Vin Diesel says, so I found this completely annoying, of course. Keith David of course was totally underused, but I'm used to that by now. The shot near the end of Paris spitting alcohol onto his torch, creating a momentary large fire that lights up the dozens of creatures that surround him is the money shot of "Pitch Black" and is a shot that I've been told was actually an ad-lib by the actor, but it was a hit when used in the trailer and just as effective in the film. It's almost worth seeing the film just to see that cool shot and the events leading up to it.
Overall "Pitch Black" was a good film, and I would of course recommend it to any Sci-Fi lover who hasn't already seen it, and assure most Sci-Fi haters (like myself, for the most part) that it is worth seeing, and not too "out there". 6/10