A very slick, fun (and scary) movie

Rating: 9/10 (14 July 2001)

I have to agree with the review I read in Entertainment Weekly -- if it hadn't been their description of "perhaps the first 'art house' science-fiction film ever made" and their grade of A-, I wouldn't have gone as I'd heard nothing about it. I was extremely and pleasantly surprised and satisfied with it. The cinematography played a great part in the effect of the film.
Since sci-fi is an underrated genre in both fiction and film (with a exceptions, of course) it can often fall prey to the cliches that are often the main structure of it. But not with this film -- again, I have to agree with EW, that Pitch Black takes the classic cliches (the crash onto a seemingly dead, desert planet, the usual mixture of survivors, the threat of an unknown alien presence) and -- just as they are becoming apparently cliched -- twists and spins them off into a very different angle.

It's a fresh, very satisfying and fun film. Best viewed with all the lights off and surround sound.