Review of Pitch Black (2000) by Jakub O — 27 Nov 2009

3 of 5 stars to the sci-fi movie Pitch Black. This is the second movie in the Chronicles of Riddick series with Vin Diesel in the role of Riddick. The movie opens with a passenger transport space ship starting to crash into a world (the ship had been knocked off-course). The ship is carrying Riddick plus several other passengers. The crash breaks the ship into lots of big chunks and Riddick is landed far from the main group of passengers. The world appears to be a hot dry planet (a desert) with three Suns. So, the handful of survivors seek water as their first task. Things seem to go OK until nightfall when bird-like creatures come out of hiding and start killing/eating people. The group is re-united with Riddick just before nightfall. From here the plot is simple and not too interesting: get to another part of the crashed ship to the shuttle to escape from the planet. Of course, between where they are and where the shuttle is are those birdlike creatures. You can guess most of the rest.

If you didn't see the first movie of the Riddick series you'd have no idea who this guy is and why he has shiny eyes. The movies does little to give you any of the back-story. For that matter, in this movie Riddick is a not too interesting character and there is no development that would lead to a future story. So this is a good sci-fi movie with a very predictable plot. Yes, I do recommend it.