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Summary: Pitch Black: Underdog Sci-Fi Flick
Review: This movie caught a lot of us Hardcore Sci-Fi fans by surprise. It makes a fine edition to a science fiction collection. It had a good run in the theatres but I find a lot of my dates that are not into sci-fi haven't seen it and love it once they do. The special effects and style in which this movie was shot was awesome. You really get lost in the environments the movie is set in. There are several plot twists they will keep you guessing and some good character development. I hope we see more of the star, Vin Diesel. He has a certain something that could make him the next B grade action star replacing Kurt Russell. He actually is writing scripts now for his own vehicle.
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Summary: Pitch Black
Review: Pitch Black is a suprisingly interesting movie. When I saw the previews for this movie I was not expecting much of a plot. I figured it would be one of those mindless horror movies that is only about blood and guts. I was happy to see a good plot in this movie that keeps you guessing until the end on what is going to happen next. Vin Diesel ,who plays the dangerous prisoner,I felt was what made this movie good. He played his part to perfection. If you enjoy science fiction you will like this movie.
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Summary: Aliens...it is not
Review: I have to be honest, I really wanted to like this film, but I was ultimately disappointed. Vin Diesel was interesting as the anti-hero, but the effects, save for a few scenes, were cheesy and obviously digitally done. This film wanted so badly to be mentioned in the same breath as truly great sci-fi films like 'Aliens,' but in the end doesn't even come close. It actually comes off more like a late night B-movie from the Sci-Fi channel. It's alright for a rental, but I doubt you would find yourself watching it over and over.
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Summary: PITCH BLACK SHOWS ITS COLORS
Review: I rented "Pitch Black" the other night, I have been wanting to see it for quite sometime when it came out in theaters due to the welcoming response it got from critics. Here is a picture that was not big big budget, had no stars, or gimmicks or big promotional plan. It came and went. I was totally blown away by the acting, the film techniques, the special effects, and the plot....Yes there was a plot and a surprise twist at the end which of course I will not give away. It was so nice to watch a movie not knowing what I was in for, not expecting what was going to happen next, and no trailers to spoil the ending. This was a nice treat, that did not get its due. "Pitch Black" should of been the sleeper hit for the summer. Here is a movie I found more interesting, plot provoking, and visually breathtaking - and movies like "Gladiator" win best picture....Go figure. It is worth a spin in the DVD.
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Summary: Pitch Black
Review: A movie with dazzling special effects, Pitch Black really works on so many levels. Survivors, stranded on a planet with three suns, search to find water. Among the survivors are an ambitious ship captain(Rahda Mitchell), a bounty hunter(Cole Hauser), a Muslim zealot(Keith David), and the best of these characters, a murderous criminal psychopath named Riddick(Vin Diesel). There's something lurking beneath the planet, down in the darkness, but they don't have to worry, as long as there is light. But, there's a problem. There's a total planetary eclipse about to happen. The creatures are to roam free in the darkness, picking off the survivors one by one. Owing much of it's plot to Alien, it's really a great science fiction movie. Diesel is eerily calm as Riddick, and he haunts the viewer with just his eyes, shined over so he can see in the dark. The monsters themselves are rarely seen, but it is more effective when they are left to the human imagination. There may be a sequel on the horizon.
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Summary: Making it cool to be a bad @ss
Review: I LOve this movie! Why you ask? The acting was acceptable, the visuals were excellent, skirting that fine line between not giving enough and going overboard (which far to many sci-fi/horror movies do), the plot, while occasionally predictbale, was just fun (for example, when the "good guys" kill another survivor accidentally, and Ridick is just sitting in the chair drinking wine cool as a cucumber...hehehehe..clever.) I could have done without the redemption, but it wasn't to heavy-handed...I was more fond of the reversal of roles. The good characters are a pilot who almost killed everyone else, then when she is stuck with them, she misleads them by ommision that she is not the captain. The cop is actually a bounty hunter, and more then that, a druggie who let a person die painfully to secure his fix. And the bad guy (and I'm not talking anti-hero, I'm talking bad as in Baaaaaaddddd) a merciless killer, who doesn't regret it, who acts more animalistic then human...however, that is to his advantage. He is equipped to handle this situation, and without him everyone else is screwed, he knows it, and they know it. It's probably not often that a homicidal sociopath can positively utilize his specialized "skills". The ending is a bit....contrived, but not bad. and for everyone who wants to whine about the logic holes, let me answer you this. The logic in this movie is much better then most movies of this genre, and for this one reason. how many times have you watched a horor movie where the guy/girl, after having sex in a house where teenagers were killed this very night 30 years ago, go and investigate a "suspicious sound", instead of doign the logical thing and tearing @ss out of there? there are numerous other commonly accepted logic faultlines that run through this genre to contrive getting the actors and the monsters in the same space together. However, Pitch Black actually addresses that easily. They know these things only come out at night, and one of them asks what any reasonable person would "umm, why don't we just not go outside?" Not an option as they have no food and the eclipse will last a long time. Simple. And yes it's the standard "there are scary things in the dark story", but it's got enough quirks and tweaks (such as the "eye shine job" and the view you get when you see through ridick's eyes) to make it engrossing. so among a genre that you have to be willing to grant a bit more suspension of belief to enjoy, it's not only a good movie, but I'd say one of the better sci-fi/horror movies lately. Also, you got to love the fact that for once, a movie has a "hero" ( and I use the term very loosely) who isn't noble, just, and honorable. Rather he's the guy who can gut you and skin you in 8 seconds....and he would to....just after he gets done with the alien. heheheheh
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Summary: "Lord Jim" from a new angle.
Review: I do not know if any of the 200-plus reviewers of this film wrote about the classical source of inspiration for "Pitch Black," but here it goes: it's "Lord Jim" by Joseph Conrad. The main elements that made "Lord Jim" an excellent novel of guilt and redemption, are found in "Pitch Black," and even some of the not-so-relevant elements as well. In "Lord Jim," a merchant vessel's officer abandons his ship and her passengers to their fate, after it appears obvious that she will sink. The passengers are pilgrims to Mecca. The ship does not sink, there is an inquiry, and Jim, the officer, his ruined, but, more importantly, he sees himself as a failure of a man because of that decision born out of fear: guilt corrodes him, and he finally seeks a way to expiate that guilt by serving people who are under attack by bloodthirsty pirates, finding the release that his conscience so sorely needed. Jump to "Pitch Black", where a merchant space vessel transporting cargo and 40 passengers is in trouble after passing through the tail of a comet. The docking pilot attempts to jettison all the containers, including the ones where the passengers are in cryo-sleep, because she doesn't see any other way to save herself and is not ready to "Die out of sheer f...ing nobility," as Mitchell, who plays the pilot, so succintly puts it. Well, she can't jettison the passengers, but that attempt on her part will haunt her for the remainder of the film, and will be the cause of her guilt, which propels her onto heroism and nobility so, close to the end of the movie, she says that she will die for the surviving passengers. A ship in the ocean and a ship in space. A guilt-ridden officer (not the captain). Bloodthirsty pirates and, in "Pitch Black," bloodthisrty alien creatures. Moslem pilgrims in both the book and the film. Guilt due to actions to save onself, and redemption through blood. The cosmetics of "Pitch Black" make it a science fiction-horror movie. It owes a great deal to "Alien" and "Aliens," particularly in the design of the creatures. Like many movies as of late, it was filmed in Australia. Like most science fiction movies, the science part doesn't work very well, although, if Asimov couldn't really make the physics work in his short story "Nightfall," the eclipse of all three suns in "Pitch Black" appears more believable. "Nightfall" is, also, an obvious reference, since really bad things happen, or come to the surface, when the lights go out. "Pitch Black" is a good movie and a nice tip of the hat to all its sources. But, ever since I saw it in its very short-lived theatrical release, I realized that, even though not credited for it, the basic human drama of guilt and expiation that Joseph Conrad presented in "Lord Jim," was here, thinly disguised, but stil very vibrant. Enjoy.
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Summary: Underated....a must see
Review: I bought this DVD just from the trailers at the cinema. Usually my hunch on things such as this aren't the best but this time I can honestly say I picked a winner. The cinematography of this film is truely breathtaking, and the special effects really are second to none. The main character is fantastically cool and even though he's a mass murderer, you tend to warm to him immediatley. I'm not going to spoil the film for anyone but all I can say is buy it, watch it and enjoy
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Summary: Better than most speculators have you think.
Review: After finishing the movie "Pitch Black," I was reminded of the review I wrote for "Urban Legend," and I began to ponder how the plot structure of that movie was a bit similar to this movie. As with "Legend," I feel that "Pitch Black" begins with an open canvas, which segue into regular tactics and cliches of horror and sci-fi, and then is rescued in the end by a climax that proves to be satisfying (of course, "Urban Legend" does it in a much less appealing manner). I did have my doubts at the beginning, but in the end, I felt that it was a good enough effort to sit through, and even enjoyable in certain places. The film begins, fittingly enough, with a spacecraft crash-landing on a secluded planet where there are three suns that shine multiple colors of brilliant light across dry, arid plains of dirt and rock. The planet itself is never identified, nor is it an important factor in the movie. It merely provides for an eerie and unstable setting that will set the tone for the terror to come, and it does a commendable job in doing so. This is where the filmmakers get to show their stuff as well, leaving the norm of filming techniques and giving us lots of yellow and blue hues to give the sense that the atmosphere is quite uncomfortable. Our group of survivors, assistant captain Fry, a female, and less than ten civilians, begin surveying the terrain in hopes of finding water and nutrition to live off of until they can safely make it off the planet's surface. The intrical character of the film is Riddick, a muscle-bound prisoner whom no one trusts until things begin to get intense. One of the group members is mysteriously killed, and further prying leads to the discovery of a small abandoned town, where a 3D diagram tells them that an eclipse is about to take place, bringing with it the thousands of carnivorous creatures that fear light. As the group searches their crippled ship for supplies to make it to the abandoned ship in the ghost town, the realization comes over them that they must face their greatest fear without even being able to see it. The first thing that needs to be discussed is Riddick's character, who is played quite well by actor Vin Diesel, a man who could match muscles with Schwarzenegger and wit with Eastwood. The script sets up his personality so that we never know when to trust him, or if we'll ever be able to. He went to jail for murder, and he shows no remorse for the crime yet neither does he express a need to rehash the events of his past. He is the typical macho man who has a hidden soft side. This makes it much more interesting, because he is the only way for the group to see where they are going (his eyes were altered by a prison mate to take on a sheen which allows him to see in absolute darkness). His swarthy looks will keep the female fans swooning while his way with words and quick reflexes will intrigue the major audience of sci-fi buffs. The movie's structure, as I said before, tends to dwindle in the middle of the film. After the lights go out, the intensity does pick up, but for some reason, I just was not as involved in this section of the story as I felt I should be, or as I usually am with movies of this sort. It seems like there could've been a little more intensity to the entire sequence of events, which involves the group's treck across the darkened terrain to the working vessel in the abandoned town. I think one of the ruinous factors of this section, and the most important, was the predictability factor. It was easy for me to tell who was going to lose their life next because the movie sets it up by developing certain character's personalities more than others, and there you have it. Then there's the old cliche where something you do in the beginning of the movie comes back to haunt you. In this case, it has to do with Fry, who was willing to save herself in the beginning by sending everyone else into oblivion while trying to land her spacecraft. This is revealed, and there is an argument among the group about the next course of action and who's in charge, but it doesn't tie up too much of the running time. However, the movie is bookended, so to speak, by a fascinating beginning and a pleasantly satisfying ending that makes the movie work. The beginning of the film really gives us the feeling of isolation and loneliness in the vast universe, and we get the feeling that even though the group is together, they are so much more apart from the rest of the universe. While the special effects employed in creating the creatures leave much to be desired, the effects used for the beginning third are superb. One shot that sticks out in the mind is the shots of the Saturn-like planet elevating on the horizon. It appears massive on screen, making the characters seem small and minute, which is very important. The ending also gives us something to smile about. The predictability ends, and the actions and tactics of the characters, especially Riddick, make the movie worth the trip. Also worth noting is the inner conflict of Riddick, if there even is one going on. You are left with the question of whether or not he has become a changed man after the events of the film, and basically you get to decide. The cast is mostly comprised of unknowns, most of whom die off in the beginning of the movie to leave the higher ranking performers to do the dirty work. Vin Diesel is a marvelous action hero/villian, and he really brings to life the uneasiness and intimidation that his character inspires in the rest of the survivors. Radha Mitchell does a commendable job as Fry, who comes off as strong-willed and involved with the events at hand. She doesn't break down or give up in the midst of tumultuous situations, but instead presses on when things get harder. It soon becomes a battle of opinion between her and Riddick, which is quite intriguing to watch. In summation, I entered in the world of "Pitch Black" without much expectation, and left it feeling more surprised than I thought I would. The movie does have its redeeming qualities to rescue it from being a mere two star flick, mostly in the acting and the majority of the story. It's an interesting look, moreso than "The Blair Witch Project," at the fact that what scares us the most is what we cannot even see.
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Summary: Great popcorn flick.
Review: Pitch Black is a good Saturday night creature feature. If you want deep science fiction see Blade Runner, Alien, or The Lathe of Heaven. If you want thrills from wave after wave of vicious bugs, then Starship Troopers or Pitch Black fits the bill. Neither one will make you scratch your head, but they're fun for an hour and a half. Two minor complaints though. 1) They never really go into the ecology of the planet. How can anything live in such a desolate place? Were there large underground caverns teaming with life that could support these carnivores? Or did the bugs subsist purely on a diet of scientists and crash-landed astronauts? 2) The eclipse was a little too convenient. Ok, the two suns go into an extended eclipse once every 22 years. The coincidence that our heroes (and one anti-hero) crash land right before this rare solar event was a touch distracting to me. But I admit that I'm being nit-picky. If you take it for what it is, Pitch Black is very worth the price of admission.
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