Pitch Black

December 10, 2004

Rated: R Runtime: 107 min Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Pitch Black is one of those rare combinations of SciFi and Horror. And although this isn’t Alien, do not let the lack of big name stars scare you away from this movie. The star power isn’t there, but the visual effects certainly are.

The story here is about a commercial spacecraft transporting both passengers and cargo which ends up crashed on a desert planet. When I say desert, I mean both in terms of terrain and temperature and lack of inhabitants. However, all is not exactly as it seems with both the planet and the survivors or the crash including the slight complication that one of the survivors is deadly killer being transported to another prison.

The visual effects in this movie are top notch. In fact, they may actually over-do it a few times. They should issue a warning for anyone suffering from epilepsy before starting this thing. The visuals are unusual and perhaps even annoying at times, but both the space scenes and those on the surface look great.

In my opinion where they really screwed up with this movie is casting. If you’re going to spend the bucks to do SciFi and nice visuals there should also be at least one star in it that someone might stand a chance of recognizing. Don’t get me wrong, the cast does a competent job and in fact Vin Diesel is quite impressive at times. However, when you hear that there’s a new Vin Diesel movie coming out, do YOU get stoked?

This is one of those movies that is very tough to review because it was too good to trash, but one that I didn’t enjoy enough to unconditionally recommend. It inspired alot of debate among our review crew after the movie. It lacked the star power, explosions and tah tahs needed to be a movies for guys classic, but we do like SciFi. I give it two stars, but if you are a really big SciFi fan, you may find it actually deserving of that additional star. For most of us, this one can wait for video.

Posted by Billy Bob | Filed Under 2 Stars, Action, Cole Hauser, Keith David, R, Radha Mitchell, SciFi, Theatrical, Vin Diesel