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Pitch
Black
(2000) |
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It's high praise indeed to suggest that this little unheralded sci-fi thriller is the best of its kind since way back when Ridley Scott unleashed his aliens. The movie begins with a huge rig hurtling through the vast cyberspace - there is a voice-over forecasting the path to doom and sure enough the vessel's cyber-sleeping crew and passengers are rudely awakened from their slumber weeks before they were due to be awoken. As shots rips through the vessel the crew is shocked out of their slumber, the ship's captain and first assistant grapple with the ship veering horribly out of control. In desperation the first assistant, played by a highly impressive Radha Mitchell, yanks the emergency lever that would literally shed all passengers to give the captain and herself a shot at survival. It's a desperate and totally selfish act, and fortunately the captain disables the lever just in time saving several lives on the doomed spacecraft.
The ship hurtles through what seems like a barrier of blinding light and plummets to a shuddering halt in the middle of nowhere. The area is utterly barren, like a desert with no signs of life - initially at any rate. One of the passengers, Riddick, is supposedly a deranged killer who will slaughter people at will without the slightest provocation. Amongst all the commotion of the crash landing, Riddick escapes the chains and manacles and is at loose creating tremendous waves of fear amongst the 8 surviving passengers. The quest for water is as important as the search for the murderous Riddick, and so the scene is set. Among the survivors is a new age Imam, a devout Muslim with his three teenage sons, spouting praise to Allah at every given turn. Their prayers are duly answered as they stumble upon some abandoned space ships that seem to have been left for dead - and discover a small supply of water. They also stumble upon some ominous signs in the shape of heaps of skeletal structures strewn all over the place. "Is everything in this place dead?" asks one of the survivors. It seems so, at least for the moment. One of the survivors discovers a hole in the earth and investigates it to shocking effect and all of a sudden it becomes apparent that clearly the survivors are not alone. Riddick is initially blamed for the horror but something far more horrendous reveals itself in the dark hole and suddenly the battle for survival is on against the most terrifying adversary since Giger's monstrous aliens from decades ago. Then, mayhem is unleashed as the three sons (yes, three) all line up behind each other to produce a total eclipse, spectacularly shot, and the scorched land of searing light turns into a zone of darkness where all hell is let loose.
The movie has all the ingredients and is made with such style that the limited budget doesn't appear a handicap in any way at all. The creatures, created by Nick Tatapoulous, who also created the far less impressive Godzilla beast for Sony's 1998 clanger, does a fine job this time. His creatures are truly frightening and utterly menacing as they stalk their hapless victims. Not only are the creatures hideously impressive but the way the film has been shot by the director is commendable. David Twohey provides cinema with the most striking imagery in the genre since Ridley Scott's magnificently mounted alien. The scene where the eclipse sets is memorable, as is the last shot of the movie and quite a few in between. The acting is of a high quality with Radha Mitchell excelling and Vin Diesel who's performance is easily as striking as his physique. Graeme Revell provides
an exhilarating score and supporting performances are generally
spot on. Spectacular, tense, truly frightening and terribly exciting the movie is quite an unexpected winner all the way. If you enjoyed the first couple of alien movies, you will rejoice in this feast of classy sci-fi terror. It may not be brilliant, it certainly won't be taking home any academy awards but it's as good a sci-fi actioner to emerge in ages putting to shame such big budget turkeys like Event Horizon and Supernova, Virus etc.
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