Pitch Black (2000)

☆ ☆

Pitch Black (2000) – D. Twohy

Somewhere, I saw this praised as a guilty pleasure (was it really Bong Joon-Ho?) but my reaction was this Vin Diesel vehicle is a rather ordinary, even boring, Alien rip-off.  The formula is quite common – an eclectic band of survivors confronts an unknown enemy and are slowly picked off one-by-one until the one or two who remain manage to escape or best the monsters.  Of course, each of the ragtag group is a stereotype because this is not the type of film where a great deal of effort is put on developing the characters.  Apart from Radha Mitchell and Vin Diesel, I found it difficult to keep them straight.  This was Diesel’s breakthrough role but he doesn’t seem particularly charismatic (I haven’t watched his more recent films).  The plot involves a long-haul spacecraft crashlanding on a planet with aliens who only come out in the dark – and Diesel is a convicted murderer (being transported by a bounty hunter) who has had surgery on his eyes so he can see best in the dark.  The planet with three suns seems safe – until there is an eclipse when all hell breaks loose.  The movie spawned several sequels.  It isn’t worth seeing, even if you are (as I was) unable to concentrate on anything more taxing than action fare.  Re-watch Alien (1979) instead.