Pitch Black (Unrated Director's Cut) (2000)

Pitch Black was arguably one of the most overlooked films of the early year. Although the setting of the film could seem routine to a casual viewer(space travelers stranded and bickering on a hostile planet infested with alien nasties), director David Twohy's wonderful use of color and stylistic flourishes more than makes up for any trivial complaints.

For those of you curious about the film's plot, it deals with a group of marooned space "passengers" who spend the majority of their time searching for a way to evacuate a harsh desert planet. Their efforts are unexpectedly forced to quicken however when they discover a particularly vicious type of nocturnal alien ready to emerge to the planet's surface during an eclipse.

Viewers can't help but like the film's villainous hero(played by Vin Diesel of Saving Private Ryan and Boiler Room)who brings to memory Arnold Schwarzenegger's famous role as the Terminator.

The film looks and sounds great and has more than a few moments of nail-biting tension thrown in for good measure. For Science Fiction fans this is a must-see. And as for the rest of you, try giving this fine movie a chance.

You'll thank me when you do.

I rate movies along simple lines. There are classics, there are flicks and there are horrible pieces not worth the film that they were printed on. I sorrily skipped Pitch Black in the theatre. The trailer was horrible. I couldn't make out *anything* about the movie and had no interest in seeing it. Thankfully, on vacation, I was holed up in a hotel that had Pitch Black on pay-per-view and decided to give it a try. I was stunned. Not only did I wish I had seen it in the theatre to truly appreciate the special effects but I enjoyed the quirky dialogue between the characters. I appreciated the seeming abandon with which character upon character is removed from the story line without my abilities of prediction serving me in the slightest. The dialogue is often cheesy. These people are space faring commoners and the movie revolves around the predicamnet they face and not their lives. Their lives form the substance to which I temporarily attached care for each. Short-lived as it may be, this care for the characters extended throughout the movie and left me feeling very satisfied. I recommend this movie as a flick. It should have been seen by all in the theatre but we weren't all so fotunate. Check it out by yourself and if you like it pull the friends around. Give it a chance. Van Diesel is what it's all about. You'll recognize him from Saving Private Ryan. The washed out scenes reminded me of Gladiator and Three Kings. The world as seen through the eyes of the aliens put me back in Fincher's Alien3. While ultimately the plot is fantasy I let this movie take me away, in much the same way we all let Star Wars (the first three) move us and Starship Troopers moved us (appealed to our collective bizarre fascist sensability or something). Have fun with it. I know I did.

Buy Pitch Black (Unrated Director's Cut) (2000) Now

No need for a plot overview: If you're reading the reviews, you have probably already seen the movie that launched Vin Diesel's career. This was the very first Blu-Ray movie that I purchased from Amazon after getting a player last year, and watching it in High-Definition was simply amazing.

I had already seen Pitch Black on DVD, and based on the sounds and visuals, I figured that Blu-Ray would bring the movie to life. I'm glad to say that I wasn't the least bit disappointed. The colors look amazing, the audio is great, and the level of detail was just unreal. I did read a few comments from other reviewers about the Blu-Ray freezing up on them, but fortunately that has never happened to me. I've since purchased countless Blu-Ray movies, but Pitch Black is easily one of my favorites to watch in HDTV.

Read Best Reviews of Pitch Black (Unrated Director's Cut) (2000) Here

With the release of The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) aka Pitch Black 2, Universal Home Video has decided to try and squeeze a bit more juice from the original film, releasing a Special Wide Screen Unrated Director's Cut edition. Is it worth it, for all of you out there who've already bought one of the numerous previous releases? I'll answer this question later. Pitch Black (2000) was directed by David Twohy, better known to me for his writing credits, specifically the Kevin Costner suck fest Waterworld (1995). Despite that particular credit, he did write and direct The Arrival (1996), which I did enjoy, but when the hole you're trying to exhume yourself from of is Waterworld, you have a lot of digging ahead of you. The most notable star in the film is Vin Diesel as Riddick, and, while not his first film, this is probably the one that really got him and his bald head noticed by the public. The film also stars Cole Hauser as William Johns, an actor I most recall from the 1993 film Dazed and Confused and sometimes get confused with Ben Affleck, who was also in that movie. Also appearing in the film is the delicious Claudia Black, a woman that any sci-fi aficionado would recognize as Aeryn Sun from the popular Farscape television series and Keith David, popular character actor I recognize mostly from John Carpenter films like The Thing (1982) and They Live (1988).

Anyhow, the film opens on a giant ship traveling through space. We see a number of people in cryo sleep, as since we all know, space travel takes a long time, so in order to pass the extended periods of time, people must be partially frozen, like green peas, and then thawed out when needed. Well, something goes wrong with the ship, and various peoples begin popping out of cryo sleep, as the computer, who probably screwed things up in the first place, now needs people to fix matters. But there's no fixing these particular matters as the ship makes a crash landing on a pretty crummy desert-like planet. As the surviving members of the ill-fated cruise extricate themselves from the wreckage, soon begin to learn more of these individuals. There's the Skipper, Mary Ann, the Professor...wait, that's not right...ah skip it...anyway, we do get to meet Riddick, the only passenger chained and bound during cryo sleep, who manages to escape his bonds, to which Johns begins to run around looking for him. As the others begin looking for water, a couple stay behind, one in particular to begin burying those who didn't survive the landing. As he's digging, he finds a hole, decides to stick his head inside, and poof, he's gone, leaving an awful lot of blood behind...where did he go? We see Riddick standing over the hole, to which everyone assumes he killed the man, but we learn pretty shortly afterwards that's not the case. An investigation turns up some pretty hideous (and hungry) creatures that can only venture out when the sun (or suns, as there's three of them on this world) is down. The stranded individuals eventually find water, in the form of a deserted mining camp. Also in the camp is a space skiff, a small ship capable of getting them off the planet and into space shipping lanes where they would most likely be picked up by a passing freighter. Only problem is the skiff needs power to operate, so heavy power cells from the crashed vessel must be transported to the skiff, and the distance is more than a hop, skip and a jump. Oh yeah, night is falling, causing the indigenous inhabitants to stir, and stir they do...by the millions...by the way, did I mention Riddick has some strange modification to his eyes that allow him to see in the dark? You can see where this might come in handy in the darkness of a planet inhabited by big, hungry, scary, carnivorous nocturnal creatures...

So, is this film any good? Being so inundated by B-movie flicks over the many years of my movie viewing existence, I was pleasantly surprised to find this was actually a very good film with better than average special effects. Okay, originality isn't its' strong point, but certain elements within the story makes it better than most, the key being that there is a coherent story throughout. And real, honest to goodness character development, to the point where I became unsure who was actually going to make it to the end of the film. The presentation of the character of Riddick, the anti-hero, was fun, and the notion of fighting evil with evil, as the tag line states seems a misrepresentation, as I really didn't see the creatures as being evil, only doing what they would normally do...the one character I found most annoying was that of Jack, given his whining and such, and sacrifices made to accommodate him. The element about the story I enjoyed most was that very little seemed to be what it appeared to be, specifically with the major characters and plot lines. Things get a bit topsy-turvy as revelations are made.

So, is it worth buying this version if you've already bought a previous DVD release of the film? Probably not...the special features included are commentaries by the director and stars Diesel and Hauser, additional commentaries by the director, the producer, and the guy in charge of the special effects, which were available on previous releases. The list of new features is listed on this website, but I found very little of them really worth my time, so if you already own a previous version (I didn't), you're not missing much. There was a free movie pass included in the DVD case, one for the new movie The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), so that's pretty sweet, give that going to the theater to see a new film has gotten so expensive.

Cookieman108

By the way, did they rename this film The Chronicles of Riddick Pitch Black? Was this done to help people remember it was the first film with the Riddick character? If so, it was a daft manuver...it will always be Pitch Black to me..

Want Pitch Black (Unrated Director's Cut) (2000) Discount?

Pitch Black is the story of a ship that crash-lands on a planet that is a scorching desert with three suns. The survivors of the crash include Fry the ship's pilot (Radha Mitchell), Riddick a prisoner (Vin Diesel) and Johns (Cole Hauser) who is guarding Riddick. While searching their surroundings the cast eventually finds some nasty aliens that live in darkness. And it turns out an eclipse is coming also. The story is relatively simple, however there are quite a few plot twists thrown in that keep the viewer constantly guessing. The effects are quite impressive for a movie of such a low budget. And Vin Diesel is one of the best anti-heroes. Keith David also provides solid support as a Muslim Priest.

The cut presented on the Unrated DVD is 3 minutes longer than the rated. There is no more violence then the R-Rated version. It is actually more character development and a few more scenes that only serve to add to the film. The picture on this DVD is quite impressive. Just watch all the colors that the three suns emit when they are walking along the horizon and you will see how impressive this DVD is. The sound is also very impressive. Especially the DTS track, just watch the opening crash scene with it on and get ready for a full on surround workout with amazing depth and clarity.

The extras however are not as impressive as the sound and video transfers. There are two audio commentaries, one with Twohy, Hauser and Diesel and another with the FX crew and Twohy. The first commentary is more casual were as the second is a technical one. Other than these two commentaries there is nothing of great value on the rest of the DVD. The 20 Minute Pitch Black Rave Event is a waste of space and should be avoided.

This is quite a good Sci-Fi film that is much better than Supernova and most movies that came out in 2000. The Unrated DVD presents the film with an excellent video transfer and two amazing soundtracks with limited extras.

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