PITCH BLACK pitched a new star in the brooding bruiser form of 32-year-old Vin Diesel. After impressing with a small part in Saving Private Ryan and a larger one in Boiler Room he was tasked with the lead in a 2000 sci-fi opus, a thriller in the survive-outer-space-critters cineverse. Directed by David Twohy (The Arrival), who co-wrote the script with brothers Jim and Ken Wheat, it groove fits the silent but deadly Vin Man into one of those Everything’s Out To Get You environments (no, not Washingon D.C.)—-i.e (a) inhospitable planet, (b) ravenous aliens, (c) few humans will be left uncomsumed standing. The (d) piece is in how well another variance on Lost Patrol is pulled off, with the whispered (e)-effect being whether the courage vs. carnage catnip is tasty enough to generate sequels. ‘In space, no-one can hear you franchise’. Actually, by now, everyone can. *

“Tell me, did you run away from your parents, or did they run away from you?”

In 2578, a spacecraft, holed by micrometeoroids (little bastards) and knocked out of its space-lane, crash-lands on a barren planet. Most of the passengers are killed, the jangled co-pilot (Radha Mitchell) and ten others are left to survey, scavenge and fend. Surveying shows endless desert, scavenging provides a sliver of temporary help, but the fend issue is complicated. A total eclipse (the orb is lit by three suns) is coming, and the darkness will be a field day of frenzy-feeding from the swarms of winged creatures (little to huge) who emerge from their lairs. They can see in the dark, can smell blood, are equipped with teeth that sharks would die for. Co-pilot ‘Fry’ (Mitchell, 26, is naturally dressed in sexy space-co-pilot garb as prescribed by long-standing conventions established by men who write these things) vies for command with ‘Johns’ (Cole Hauser), a surly bounty hunter/morphine addict, and both come to rely on the brawn and brains of dangerous convict ‘Riddick’ (Diesel), whose surgically enhanced eyes enable him to see in the dark. The other eight are little help and include ‘Abu al-Walid’ (David Keith), an Imam leading some young charges to New Mecca. Injecting religion to outer space—that ought to work out just great. While the people bicker and stumble, the creatures flock and prepare to fight for sapien scraps.

Diesel, Mitchell and Hauser make dynamic competitors. Oddly, the always welcome Keith (no stranger to dealing with ‘things’) doesn’t register as strongly as usual. The Australian locations (around Coober Pedy, used in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Red Planet and The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert) are fittingly forbidding and the attacking avians are an impressively sinuous but decidedly unlovely mash-up of pterodactyls, sharks and snakes.

All well and good, hamstrung only by way too much camera-jittering and edit cuts so millisecond swift that instead of the tension, confusion and fear they’re intended to suggest they more often induce agitation, irritation and boredom with the technique. It took this viewer three times seeing the film to finally relax into the plot and performances instead of wanting to reach into the screen and nail the frickin’ camera to the floor. The only way you ever get a clear look at the creatures is if you can quick-draw on the freeze-frame button. That’s just my beef: the ardent fan base that made this a cult fave are unfazed. So be it.

Production cost ran to $23,000,000. A $39,241,000 domestic take (59th spot) was augmented by $13,947,000 international. 109 minutes, with Lewis Fitz-Gerald, Rhiana Griffith, Claudia Black (compelling presence) and John Moore.

Spaceware by Dudes, Inc.

* Pitches—followed in 2004 by The Chronicles Of Riddick, then just plain Riddick in 2013. Beware, Riddick: Furya approaches…

The director has spoken: “I’ve got three characters in this film who not only change from where they begin but also change from where you expect them to end up. I had three leads, and they each thought they were the lead, which made for a lot of ego problems on the set. But ego problems are not always a bad thing”….”I was just trying to get out of Australia with my skin, without the bond company coming in and tacking my hide to the side of a barn”….”We certainly didn’t plan it as a franchise. We were just so consumed with trying to make the first movie work.”

The Mighty Vin juggled the Richard B. Riddick legend with three bouts as ‘Xander Cage’ in XXXers and—most likably badass of all—nine furiously fast laps as family man outlaw ‘Dominic Torreto’.