Good idea - but that's all!

Rating: 1/10 (28 November 2000)

What can I say about Pitch Black - while viewing the trailer I found this to be a rather exciting idea for the science fiction vehicle, but was terribly disappointed at the outcome. The opening scenes instantly gave me a bad vibe about this film - o.k it is a low budget film but that doesn't stop it from being good - but the ham acting and bad dialogue does. This film also tries to win the audience with some badly thought out humour which wasn't close to being witty or sharp. Allright I hear you say it's just a sci-fi movie but it could have been so much better - what seemed a good idea (spaceship crashing on an unknown planet with several survivors trying to re-launch before the planets 3 suns eclipse and unleash winged beasts who only come out in this period of darkness to kill and destroy etc ), this film tried to play with this idea and failed. I felt cheated by seeing the trailer before-hand, which showed probably the best clip which lasted 30 seconds (honestly), and had to suffer the remaining 1hr 29 minutes and 30 seconds. The characters I found laughable; the convict (wanted for murder - which by the way is glorified sadly throughout the movie) who is bad-guy turned good-guy , the English antique dealer ???? (thats what I thought!!), the totally unconvincing captain of the ship - I could go on but I'm not going to. I honestly am a big sci-fi fan but I would class this as a straight to video release from the eighties ( YES that bad!!) and find the only thing frightening about it is how this movie has become so successful. The special effects are rubbish and look like rejects from the Starship Troopers studio and that along with a pathetic script ruins what seemed to be a pretty good idea. Nuff said 1/10.