Ok, I watched Pitch Black yesterday. It was Ok. Maybe a 6/10. Spoilers below:
The good:
- The overall dark and creepy feel made the movie worth watching. Horror films never scare me and this was no exception, but it was kinda cool to watch. The prison ship and cryo looked and felt appropriately gritty.
- Cast. It was just nice to see Claudia Black and Keith David (an actor who's voice work is probably more well-known: my favorite animated series and character, Spawn, as well as Goliath from Gargoyles and lots of TV commercials). Diesel is the best looking anti-hero in modern film and would make a good cartoon or action figure. The blonde chick did a good job.
- The premise. Though cheesy, the whole darkness thing was engaging.
- The monsters. I like the way they looked and acted. The scenes with them feeding was appropriately messed up.
The bad:
- Vin Diesel's acting, or lack of it. Sure the dude looks impressive in a tank top and shades (I would kill for that physique), but he has all the charisma of a pencil sharpener. His screen presence is shockingly bland, especially with the cool environments, fun dialogue, tough character and cool poses he gets to play in. It's like I should be impressed by or scared of Riddick but I'm not. In Fast and Furious I blamed the stupid movie for his lameness, but now I know he just doesn't cut it as an actor in my book.
- The Muslim guy came off so corny. All his kids are dying around him and he still maintains a cheery attitude.
- Aeryn Sun dies too early and stupidly. Hell, Claudia Black should have been Riddick. Now that would kick ass.
- Editing. That modern, ultra-fast cut editing style that I hate, where I don't know what the hell is going on, like on MTV. There's this one scene where Riddick is facing off a monster one on one, and it would have been so sweet, except when he finally kills it, they show like all the angles at once for a millisecond and I don't know what happened.
Assuming Chronicles of Riddick is a bigger, flashier, adventure story version of Pitch Black, it should be a nice spectacle, hopefully with a plot that makes some sort of sense, but with too much nonsense to take it seriously. One the Pitch Black DVD, the director says, "It's not good guys vs bad guys, it's bad guys vs evil guys."