Vin Diesel Movie:

		List Price: $14.98		Label: Universal Studios Salesrank: 208368 Released: March 22, 2009
		Our Price: $9.02
		Used Price: $9.08
		MPAA Rating: R (Restricted) Media: DVD

Editorial Review:
Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 03/24/2009 Run time: 109 minutes Rating: R

Fast & Furious Movie Cash: Pitch Black Reviews:
They come in the night
2009-08-02 - Imagine the legendary "Flight of the Phoenix," except the crash is on a barren alien planet... and there are nasty flesh-eating monsters. And a serial killer.

That describes David Twohy's most artistically adept movie, the raw and dusty "Pitch Black. This cult movie starts off as your average gang of embattled, ill-matched castaways struggling to survive, but it that becomes utterly brilliant as it slowly slips from gritty sci-fi to harrowing, claustrophobic horror. And yes, even Vin Diesel gives an awesome performance in this one.

After a meteor storm, a sleeper transport crashes on a desolate desert planet. Most of the passengers survive, including a stowaway kid and a dangerous prisoner, Riddick (Vin Diesel). Unfortunately, it turns out that the entire planet is a desert because it's blasted by three suns all throughout the day, and the survivors have little food, water or shelter. Oh yeah, and Riddick has broken out.

To find the necessities, a small group led by Carolyn Fry Radha Mitchell) sets out across the desert -- and discovers a swarm of vicious omnivorous creatures in a cave. Fortunately they can't come out into the light. But when the group finds a geological survey station, they learn that a monthlong eclipse is about to fall over the planet -- meaning the creatures will soon eat them all if they don't escape from the desolate planet, and some of them aren't gonna make it.

Personally I haven't liked David Twohy's work except the 1996 sci-fi film "Arrival," but "Pitch Black" is the kind of brilliant cult movie that almost makes up for an otherwise okay-to-bad filmography. This is not a polished space opera, but a dingy, grimy, dirty sci-fi movie full of recognizably ugly technology and stained morals -- not to mention some truly grotesque deaths. And not all of them are from the winged beasties either (think chest impalement).

And Twohy gives the movie a very bleak, vaguely disturbing look -- endless chalky deserts filled with bones, grimy ships torn to pieces, empty skies, and searing pale light that makes everyone look half dead. Even the beautiful colourful expanses of space seem vaguely ominous. But the whole thing suddenly becomes jump-in-your-seat scary when the monsters attack, and start eating people as they run. The one problem? COME ON, what are the chances that they would JUST HAPPEN to arrive for the once-in-two-decades eclipse?

And the feeling of suspense is heightened by sharp-edged, pared-down dialogue ("You're dancing on razor blades here") and a warped sense of humor -- we're assured that "No similarity to actual persons or predators, living or dead, is intended or should be inferred." Nice.

The characters are a pretty mixed bag, and there's always the haunting realization that most of them would easily turn on each other to save themselves -- and in fact, the main character even does that in the first few minutes of the film. There's benevolent Muslim pilgrims, a hard-nosed bounty hunter, a prissy dude who hoards booze, and an annoying urchin of ambiguous gender. The standouts are Claudia Black as the tough Shazza, and Keith David as the kindly Abu "Imam" al-Walid.

As for the leads, Diesel gives a pretty good performance as a wisecracking killer with a distinctly creepy edge (ew, he took a hair sample) and "shine" eyes that let him see in the dark. But I was most impressed by Mitchell's Fry, as a selfish hardened leader who learns to defend other people's lives in a crunch.

"Pitch Black" is a fast, eerie, bloody little sci-fi movie with a nasty little planet full of even nastier creatures that are just waiting for dark. Definitely worth it for sci-fi buffs.

Pitch Black - Awesome for Vin Diesel fans
2009-04-18 - Sorry but this is an awesome movie. Lot's of Vin Diesel eye candy with some vicious bird monsters thrown in. Vin can do no wrong. The bad guy who saves the day (well, for some of the characters).