mediocre sci fi entry

Rating: Null/10 (17 February 2001)

`Pitch Black' is a ha'penny, two-bit science fiction film that plays like a hybrid between `Lost in Space' and the much-imitated `Alien' and `Jurassic Park' films. In this film, a space ship carrying a cargo of commercial passengers is forced to crash land on an unidentified planet, which, although there doesn't seem to be a shred of animal life anywhere to be found, still manages to be somehow inhabited by swarms of carnivorous birdlike creatures that only come out at night. Ask not what these animals must feed on when there isn't a crew of fleshy earthlings conveniently placed there for them to nibble on. Such rigorous application of logic is not one of `Pitch Black's strongest selling points.
Neither, in fact, is the cast of characters it has managed to assemble for the occasion. Here we have the typical `cross section of humanity' routinely called upon to make its appearance in films of this type. The ship's crew and passengers include two feisty young women, a hardnosed law enforcer (is he really a hero or a man with something to hide?), an effete wine-guzzling coward, an androgynous teenager (the `revelation' involving this character comes as a surprise only to the dimwitted characters in the film), a family of Muslims and a truth-seeing, muscle-bound serial killer who becomes the group's physical and intellectual mainstay.

The story, though simpleminded and derivative of any number of other better films, nevertheless, manages to border on the murky and incoherent quite often. We often aren't sure who is doing what or why (though, in all honesty, we don't particularly CARE either). The special effects are generally sub par for a film of this genre and the only real attempt to create an otherworldly atmosphere consists in applying various types of light filters to the camera lens.
Completely lacking in suspense, excitement or originality (although the ending has a slightly unexpected twist), `Pitch Black' is strictly one for the video graveyard.