The year is 2000 and a relatively new actor graces the scene. But his not new to acting being from the Indie Genre and a few features such as Saving Private Ryan. Vin Diesel is finally awarded a leading roll.
The plot, marooned space travellers end up crashing their spaceship onto a desert planet and in it, infamous mass murderer Reddick. It's our first real glimpse of Vin Diesel and the audience is about to take a joy ride.
20 years ago Diesel was a buff 34 year old and still is at 54. But his depiction on the big screen was some what a return of the Arnie/Stallone type which had gradually been exiting cinemas for more modern comedy love type of films and the inclusion of some pretty powerful CGI films.
Whereas Pitch Black was a low budget Sci-Fi simply about a group of stranded passengers trying to find their way off the planet.
The back story we're given about Riddick is that he is a mass murderer and his been captured by a bounty hunter who has him cuffed and chained to the ship. Upon his head he has some welding goggles and they're not because he likes to weld.
His eyes have been enhanced so that he can stalk his prey in the night as they enable him to have night vision. Without the welding goggles Riddick is blinded by the bright lights.
It isn't long until Riddick pieces together that something is wrong and that outposts have been abandoned. He befriends a young boy whose actually a girl but pretending to be a boy and he/she wishes to be like Riddick.
It isn't too long before we find out what that horror is, once the planets 3 Sun's set and form somewhat of an eclipse hordes of alien creatures awake and search for lunch, which happens to be our crew members.
Riddick is the only one able to see the creatures in the dark and the crew rely on our favourite mass murderer to get them to safety.
The film is one of my cult favourites and it's definitely what gave Vin his rise to stardom. People loved him! The film also went on to spur an anime film and the Chronicals of Riddick. An attempt to join the growing fantasy craze that was happening at the time.
We end up finding our Mass Murderer is a ruler of some form of supreme race and is double crossed. He also has powers, none of which were exhibited in the original Pitch Black no doubt if they were, things would have been alot easier.
For me, personally the original is a great stand alone film and doesn't require much more, the franchise also went onto create video games and no doubt due to Vin sold plenty of comments.
The film is also a testament to not needing massive budgets to create great films. It has gone down as one of the best films of the 00s.
Have you Seen Pitch Black? What were your thoughts of it and would you recommend it to others?
