Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
Pitch Black (1999)
Director: David Twohy
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
A smart, suspenseful sci-fi movie from director Twohy, whose underrated 1996 film, The Arrival, also brought visual imagination and intelligence to the genre. When an interstellar spacecraft collides with a meteor shower, passengers and crew awake from cryo-sleep to find the captain dead and the ship spinning out of control. Inexperienced docking pilot Mitchell crashlands on a planet, scorched by three suns that never set. This is particularly bad news for psycho prisoner Diesel, whose surgically altered eyes are adapted for night vision. It also gives a vital edge to his captor, hardass lawman Hauser. With help from the game but guiltridden Mitchell, Hauser tries to rally the survivors, who include an antiques collector, a Moslem cleric and a shy boy. Despite the modest budget, the visualisation of the parched planet and voracious creatures is credible and spectacular. But it's the skilful handling of the tense, shifting group dynamics that seizes your attention. If the film has a weakness, it is perhaps that Diesel's intense psycho totally outshines Hauser's bland, handsome hero and Mitchell's Ripley-like heroine.Author: NF
Cast & crew
Director: David Twohy
Producer: Tom Engelman
Cast: Vin Diesel, Radha Mitchell, Cole Hauser, Keith David, Lewis Fitz-Gerald, Claudia Black, Rhiana Griffith, John Moore full cast
Genre(s): Science Fiction
Duration: 110 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
To the letter
Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.
Mind over matter
David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.
Fool's gold
Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.
We are the championed
Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."
A history of violence
Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.
True romantic
James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.
Playing in the dark
MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.
Junk bonds
Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.
What do you think?
Post your review now