Pitch Black turned up out of the blue in 2000 with one of the best trailers i've seen to date. It was minimal, visually stark and left you wanting more and wanting to know what happened to the alcohol fuelled flame blowing man as he was surrounded in the darkness.
Pitch Black follows the story of a passenger space vessel that is carrying a variety of passengers from traders and collectors to criminals and bounty hunters. When the vessel loses its flight path its spirals and crashes on a strange planet where things are exactly what they seem to be. The film was the launching vehicle for Vin deissel playing a great anti hero character Riddick. Name name is the eye candy who plays the vessels pilot who wises up to the situation she finds herself in,. Cole Hauser plays Johns the bounty hunter. These 3 characters form the main trio and they are a good match, they all bounce well off each other are believable and the acting is above par in what is essentially a b style movie. The rest of the supporting actors play their roles as expected you have a holy man and a typically English gent who collects art and antiques and wine.
Sure it takes ideas from other movies and the low budget shows at certain points, but what you do get is an interesting character driven film that explores some basic ideas and loyalties which and aslo you get a strange alien planet, an eclipse and some interesting ideas. If you like science fiction movies you'll more than likely find this enjoyable and its a far better movie than its sequel.
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