Pitch Black

Why go to see a given film or movie? Because of a given actor, director, genre, or style of cinema. You have seen it all before. And that is why you go again. And again. The element of familiarity.

So what happens when you go to a given film or movie, expecting the familiar, and find something not familiar? You feel betrayed.

So goes an easy encapsulation of "Pitch Black".

You go expecting the familiar and find otherwise.

"Pitch Black" opens on a vast expanse of outer space, suggesting epic, the story starting during an interstellar mission, with the crew and a stereotypical prisoner tucked away in cryo-sleep. As they nod the ship collides with a cluster of asteroids. And, as such stories tend to go, the hull of the ship is breeched, left looking like so much Swiss Cheese.

Because of this accident the captain, conveniently, and several members of the crew are killed. So a remaining crew member, Fry, has to step up and take charge: (Radha Mitchell).

Fry isn't the best leader, so this only compounds the problems at hand. Which are further complicated when it is decided to crash-land the ship on a planet that circles a three-star system, where one sun never seems to set, and where the remaining crew find themselves not only fighting for survival but fighting the aforementioned prisoner, Riddick (Vin Diesel).

If the actor playing Riddick looks familiar, he should. He has played the heavy before, and he does the heavy here well. In fact he does it so well he is the saving grace of the movie, certain to be a failure at the box office.

Riddick is a dominating presence on the screen. But if that isn't enough he has these eyes that allow him to see in the dark.

He can see in the dark? So? The sun never sets.

Right?

Just to keep the plot lumbering along night does fall on the planet. When it does it does by way of an eclipse. And when the eclipse occurs this creature comes out. And the creature starts chasing the crew--

"Pitch Black" could have been good. It should have been good.

"Pitch Black" could have been a bona fide epic. It should have been. But it was so busy trying to be something not familiar it failed to be anything of merit or value.

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