Surprisingly enough a good Sci-Fi movie

Rating: 7/10 (3 January 2005)

I had never heard of this movie when it came out, probably because no-one ever wrote a review on it in the magazines and because no-one ever paid any attention to it before. Let's be honest, who knew anything about Vin Diesel before "The Fast and the Furious" and "xXx"? Probably not many of you and I'm not saying that I did. So when "The Chronicles of Riddick" was released I was very surprised to hear that this was actually a sequel. And of course when a sequel is released in the multiplexes, at least one TV-channel will program the first movie and this time it wasn't any different. That's how I first saw "Pitch Black" and even though I'm not a fan of Sci-Fi movies, I have to say that I had a good time watching this one.
The story is good. A space ship has made a crash landing on some seemingly lifeless planet, scorched by three suns. One of the passengers that survived the crash is Richard B. Riddick, a convicted murderer who is feared by all the passengers. But they have to find water to survive and a base to get help and they will need all the help they can get so they release him. When they reach the base, there is no-one to welcome them. It's completely deserted. Some kind of animals, who fear daylight, have eaten all the inhabitants. Normally there is always plenty of light, but once in a few years there is a solar eclipse. And this is exactly the time that there will be such an eclipse...
Overall this movie reminded me a bit of Aliens, but I'm already glad that it didn't copy it completely. Somehow it tried to be original and that's not always easy. OK, you'll still encounter many horror and Sci-Fi clichés, but it's all done in such a way that they get away with it. It's all still believable. The different characters were OK, but could perhaps be deepened more. I mean, you'll never really know who the bad guys and the good guys are, but I sometimes wanted to know more about certain people. I wanted to know why they reacted in the way they reacted, I wanted to know what drove them...
However, what I loved most about the movie were the special effects and the lighting. The creatures or aliens or whatever you like to call it were really cool to watch. Same for the lighting. The idea of a blue sun was cool and something I hadn't seen before in a movie. Also the use of different shades and intensities of light, as well as Riddick's night vision were interesting.
All in all this movie was certainly worth a watch, even for people like me who don't like Sci-Fi at all. If I have to recommend it to anyone than it will of course be to the people that adore this genre. I'm sure they will be blown away by it. Personally I give it a 6,5/10 and that's probably the highest score I've ever given to a movie of this kind.