Pitch Black (2000)

A group of marooned space travelers struggle for survival on a seemingly lifeless sun-scorched world.

Director:

David Twohy

Writers:

Jim Wheat (story), Ken Wheat (story),

Stars:

Vin Diesel, Radha Mitchell, Cole Hauser

2 wins & 4 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Vin Diesel	...	Richard B. Riddick
Radha Mitchell	...	Carolyn Fry
Cole Hauser	...	William J. Johns
Keith David	...	Abu 'Imam' al-Walid
Lewis Fitz-Gerald	...	Paris P. Ogilvie
Claudia Black	...	Sharon 'Shazza' Montgomery
Rhiana Griffith	...	Jack / Jackie
John Moore	...	John 'Zeke' Ezekiel
Simon Burke	...	Greg Owens
Les Chantery	...	Suleiman
Sam Sari	...	Hassan
Firass Dirani	...	Ali
Ric Anderson	...	Total Stranger
Vic Wilson	...	Captain Tom Mitchell
Angela Moore	...	Dead Crew Member

Storyline

The space transport vessel "Hunter-Gratzner" carrying 40 people on-board crashes on a desert planet when the ship is struck in a meteor storm. There are only 12 survivors, among them are pilot Carolyn Fry (Who has assumed command after the ship's captain is killed), bounty hunter William J. Johns, religious man Abu Al-Walid, Antiques dealer Paris P. Ogilvie, runaway teenager Jack, settlers John 'Zeke' Ezekiel and his lover Sharon 'Shazza' Montgomery and Richard B. Riddick, a dangerous escaped convict. Marooned, the 10 survivors finds the barren and hot desert-scape has sunlight from three suns. Not only must they find food and water and worry about Riddick, the survivors find themselves being hunted by the planet's flesh-eating alien inhabitants when the planet is engulfed in darkness, which happens every 22 years, as they emerge from underground to hunt and eat all signs of life. Fry and the survivors find Riddick is their best chance of survival, as Riddick has surgically-enhanced ...

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Plot Keywords:

darkness | survival | desert planet | criminal | spaceship | 

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Taglines:

Fight Evil With Evil

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Genres:

Action | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for sci-fi violence and gore, and for language

Details

Official Sites:

Showbizz.net (French) [ca] USA Films

Country:

USA

Language:

English Arabic

Release Date:

18 February 2000 (USA)

Also Known As:

Nightfall

Filming Locations:

Queensland, Australia

Box Office

Budget:

$23,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£900,663 (UK) (10 November 2000)

Gross:

£2,702,570 (UK) (8 December 2000)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Polygram Filmed Entertainment, Interscope Communications

Technical Specs

Runtime:

109 min 112 min (unrated)

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital EX SDDS DTS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

While waiting between takes the lighting team would set up several 5k lights to allow the rest of the crew to warm up, before they had to go back to work in the sub 50F weather.

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Goofs

In the darkened hallway immediately after the eclipse, the shadow of a camera is visible (at least in the wide-screen version) on the left third of the screen.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Riddick: [voiceover] They say most of your brain shuts down in cryo-sleep. All but the primitive side, the animal side. No wonder I'm still awake. Transporting me with civilians. Sounded like 40, 40-plus. Heard an Arab voice. Some hoodoo holy man, probably on his way to New Mecca. But what route? What route? I smelt a woman. Sweat, boots, tool belt, leather. Prospector type. Free settlers. And they only take the back roads. And here's my real problem. Mr. Johns... the blue-eyed devil. ...

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Crazy Credits

The persons and events in this production are fictitious. No similarity to actual persons or predators, living or dead, is intended or should be inferred.

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Connections

References Five Came Back (1939)

User Reviews

This is a great film! If this is your genre', you won't be disappointed . . .

I will admit, I was already a fan of Serenity, Riddick Chronicles and all that, so I did go into this film with a bit of predetermined anticipation. On the flip side, I'm not always that much of a Vin Deisel fan, in that he is somewhat mono-dimensional in his range of characters, but for the embodiment of Riddick, he does fit perfectly. As for the story and how it plays out, the pace is good, not too encumbered with gratuitous special effects and all that, but where it does fit, the CGI is well done and appropriate.

The one really glaring technical defect in this story is how everyone just gets out and starts walking around, breathing in the air without the slightest concern for differences in the atmosphere, microbes and so on, but this is a common flaw that is often somehow glossed over in many such stories, so I can't harp on that detail too much.

As for Radha Mitchell, she is smokin' hot here, not in a ridiculous or frivolous way, but as her tough, seasoned interplanetary merchant marine ship's captain character "Fry", she nails it perfectly. If anything, she very much reminds me of Andrea Osvart (see her as the Hungarian assassin "Gilda" in the film "Two Tigers").

Now, if these two ladies ever appeared together in a film, I would drop everything and go check that out in a heartbeat . . . but I digress.

In any case, I have no trouble with granting 8 stars to "Pitch Black".