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PITCH BLACK (UNRATED)
Review by Michael Jacobson
Stars: Vin
Diesel, Radha Mitchell, Cole Hauser, Keith David
Director: David Twohy
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1
Video: Widescreen 2.35:1 Anamorphic
Transfer
Studio: Universal
Features: See Review
Length: 112 Minutes
Release Date: October 24, 2000
Film ***
Part of me looks at a film like Pitch Black and
thinks, “I’ve seen this all before.”
It’s a story about a spacecraft that crashes on an unknown planet,
waking the crew from their hyper-sleep, and forcing them to come to terms with
one another and their situation in order to survive. There are vicious alien creatures out to get them.
If I threw that statement out there by itself and asked what movie I was
describing, I could probably get back no less than twenty different responses.
But part of me looks at this picture and marvels.
Why? Because the story
details in this case aren’t what make the movie.
The film is driven by a sense of style and urgency that few other similar
movies have reached. The look, sound and feel make Pitch Black more than
just another sci-fi scarefest.
For starters, it gets right into the action immediately.
No character introductions, no exposition.
A spacecraft is being spectacularly pummeled by meteors and debris.
The crew awaken from their hibernation amidst chaos and try to save the
ship, which crashes onto an unknown planet.
This is about as well done and exciting as an opening ten minutes can
get.
The captain is dead, leaving the second-in-command, Fry
(Mitchell) in charge. Among her
human cargo are an officer, Johns (Hauser) who is responsible for an unusual
prisoner, Riddick (Diesel). Riddick
is a convicted murderer: a
powerful, lethal man with strange looking eyes that can see in the dark.
They don’t appear to be much use to him at first, however, because the
unlucky ship has crashed on a strange world with three suns.
The three-sun look helps the film’s unique visual style.
One of the suns is always glowing, and each is a different color, which
completely changes the look of the landscape and the people and objects in it. Certain colors are reduced, making the scenes a surreal wash
of monochrome that really brings out the sense of ‘alien’ in alien
environment.
The first order of business is to survive.
The find another ship, whose crew and passengers have been dead for
sometime, but might be made space-worthy enough to get the marooned adventurers
home. But they soon discover
they’re not alone. Underneath the surface, in the shadows and tucked away in the
crevices where light can’t reach, live strange flying monstrosities that kill
and devour living prey. The crew
seems fairly safe at first, when they learn that light harms the creatures.
Stay in broad daylight, stay alive.
But then an unusual event takes place:
as Fry discovers using an elaborate model found on the derelict ship, a
convergence of solar bodies is about to take place that will eclipse all three
suns at once, throwing the planet into complete darkness.
And they know what that’s going to mean, just like we do.
Soon, the hapless crew are forced to make a trek from the
wrecked ship to the freshly repaired one in total blackness.
They harness all the portable lights they can find, but they seem almost
pathetic and weak compared to the blanket of darkness enveloping them.
Riddick reluctantly agrees to lead, since he has good night vision, but
the others, particularly Johns, don’t trust him entirely.
And soon, the crew finds they can’t stop in-fighting enough to keep
survival their primary instinct. Meanwhile,
the creatures are everywhere. They can’t always be seen, but they can be heard.
In one of the most awe inspiring shots I’ve seen, a lone man sits in
the middle of the screen with a dying flame that barely lights his figure
against the darkness. He takes a
drink and spits it into the flicking fire, which creates a big bright fireball
that lasts just enough for him and us to see he’s surrounded by hundreds of
those things. Then darkness, and
awful, awful sounds.
It really is this sense of style that propels the movie and
keeps it a tense ride. Darkness is
something we instinctively fear, and in this picture, darkness equals death.
To be huddled together in blackness and surrounded by things you can’t
see that are waiting to kill you…well, who wouldn’t be scared out of their
gourd?
This is a pretty good cast, even though the characters, as
in most ‘monster’ movies, are there simply to be chased, terrified, and done
away with in grisly ways. Vin
Diesel is perfect as Riddick, with a great voice and physical presence that
makes you believe he’s a guy who could kill you just as easily as save you.
But the real star of the picture is David Twohy’s visual
environment. He has created an
outer space movie with a different look than any other foreign planet movie has
achieved. His visuals enhance the
terror and increase the believability that his actors really are in a strange
and hostile environment. Then, when
he switches to darkness, he captured the fear perfectly using very limited but
well-placed lighting to keep the audience just aware enough of what is
happening, but leaving a whole lot of room open for the imagination in the
margins. His skillful POV shots for
both the creatures and Riddick, showing what the darkness looks like through
their eyes, are impressively done and a nice added touch.
Pitch Black, therefore, takes and old recipe and bakes a new dessert with it. And if the graphic violence is too much for you, an R rated version of this film is also available on disc, but for me, I’m convinced this unrated version is the one Twohy wanted us to see. Just don’t forget to leave a light on afterward.
Video ****
Quite simply, this is one of the best looking DVDs I’ve
seen, and the reason I say that is because this film makes more demands on your
system’s video capabilities than any I’ve seen. Take the opening shots, for example, which feature dark
scenes suddenly interrupted by harsh white lights and sudden bright stabbing
colors that appear and disappear instantly.
It’s an all out assault on the eyes.
Then the rest of the film features extreme color shifts, as each sun
brings out a different set of hues on the planet’s surface.
The effect is almost monochromatic, but strong, and still with excellent
detail and the kind of dimensional rendering you wouldn’t expect from a
suddenly limited color palate. These
are juxtaposed with indoor scenes and artificial lighting, which bring back a
more natural spectrum. Finally, the
whole movie ends up plunged in blackness, with small amounts of light, sometimes
in various colors, as the only source of visual, throwing accents and hues on
figures and objects that are mostly darkened.
And in all instances, this is a stellar transfer:
it never suffers break up or shimmer, it never gets beyond a few slight
touches of natural grain which are inherent in low-light high-contrast
photography. I’d put this disc on
for anybody who wants to see how good DVD can look.
Audio ****
This 5.1 audio track actual rivals the video transfer for
quality. I listened to the Dolby
Digital version (DTS is also included on the disc), and was simply blown away.
Again, I mention the opening sequence, which is loud, powerful and a full
out explosive attack coming at you from all channels.
You’re really going to feel like you’ve been through a meteor storm
when it’s over, but that’s not the end of the goodies.
There are plenty of quieter scenes that harness all stages for
atmospheric effects (wind, storms, the flying baddies), that you’ll be
consistently immersed in the sound from beginning to end.
The dynamic range is awesome, and the subwoofer gets plenty of work, too. Dialogue is clean and clear and never swallowed up by the
other effects. Your entire home
system is going to feel like it’s been on the treadmill after playing this
disc.
Features ***1/2
The disc contains two commentary tracks, one by director
Twohy with actors Diesel and Hauser, the second with Twohy, producer Tom
Engelman and effects supervisor Peter Chiang.
There are also two trailers, the ‘all audiences’ one and the
‘restricted’ one, a production featurette, and a collection of video images
from a Pitch Black event that took place via the web on Raveworld.
Not a bad package!
Summary:
Pitch Black is a sci-fi thriller with a sense of style that makes it rise far above the mediocrity and familiarity of the core material and become an entertaining scare ride. But even more importantly, this is one of the best discs ever released in terms of audio and video quality. I promise you, this DVD is worth having just to convince those few remaining naysayers in your life that digital is the way to go.