Pitch Black

Pitch Black – 2000 – United States

Of all the movies inspired by Alien (1979), this is the only one starring Vin Diesel. Actually, that’s probably not even true. In any case, Pitch Black is a reasonably entertaining movie, but it isn’t a very remarkable one, and I’m a little surprised that Vin Diesel’s character Riddick went on to have a whole series of movies. He is a hardboiled criminal of ambiguous morality whose most defining feature is that he can see in the dark. Maybe I should watch another Riddick movie and see what all the fuss is about.

Pitch Black takes place on a planet with 3 suns that only experiences darkness during a solar eclipse every 22 years. During that rare nightfall, swarms of light-averse, pterodactyl-like monsters fly out of their caves and eat all life on the surface. A motley crew of travelers is space-wrecked and must survive the monster-filled darkness. There is some squabbling and backstabbing, and most of them get killed.