Last one out turn off the lights

Rating: 5/10 (20 November 2004)

I watched this because I wanted to watch The Chronicles Of Riddick and I thought it best to understand some back story. I wish I hadn't bothered.
The odd thing is, a lot of people really like this movie. They think it's a low-key, suspense-filled sci-fi classic, in the mold of Alien. They're idiots, mind you. This is just dull.
The idea is that a ship crash lands on a strange planet, killing most of the crew. Among the survivors is Riddick, a murderer being transported back to justice. The planet in question has a strange arrangement of suns, such that there is perpetual daylight. The place is a constant desert. The survivors discover a ruined settlement where the previous inhabitants were all eaten. It seems there are aliens that live in the dark beneath the surface of the planet. And that's when the eclipse comes...
What follows is a story where the small band of scared humans tries to harness what little light they can while trying to repair a small spaceship to get them off the planet. And what about Riddick? Is he friend or foe? Well, I'll tell you what he's not: a very good actor. Vin Diesel grunts and rasps his way through this film with little or no effort at all. Sometimes he does a sort of evil chuckle which is really quite rubbish. And, for a film called Pitch Black, there is really quite a lot of light about, despite the supposed eclipse. While frantic extras are trying to huddle around a small flame from a Jack Daniels bottle, there's loads of light illuminating the hills behind them. Where's all that coming from?
Unscary CGI aliens, identikit cannon-fodder humans, poor one-liners. This is the sort of action movie I thought we had left behind. All of which makes the prospect of the Chronicles of Riddick even less tempting.
5 out of 10