I am not your *** captain

Rating: Null/10 (7 March 2000)

The joke goes that in a G rated movie, the good guy gets the girl while in a R rated movie, it's the bad guy. In a X rated movie, everyone gets the girl. Which leads us in a quandary about "Pitch Black" where no one gets the girl. The film models itself after scary movies from the past, notably the first "Alien" and the earlier classics, "The Birds" and "Day of the Triffids". But "Pitch Black", for all its inventiveness and original ratchet sounds, is no more than a slight thriller because it never intended to aim any higher. Oh, there is some religious theme if you buy the Muslim father figure who still sees God in a mucked up world and there is the loyalty of a reluctant starship commander named Fry (Radha Mitchell) to her companions. But basically this is a film to sit back to get frighten by and to figure out who will survive at the end. It helps that a certain figure named Riddick (Vin Diesel) comes with night vision eyes because the eclipse will render everything unsafe. And that a barren planetary outpost has just the necessary props to fit the plot. The ending, while unexpected, is in keeping with a film that is, first and foremost, out to scare you. Anything else is just not in the cards.