Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 16-May-04
Spoiler Rating: High

Pitch Black (2000)

Horror stories have long been used to represent mankind's most basic physical, emotional, and psychological conflicts. Ironically, although modern technology has diminished the ancient terror of monsters, witches, and the like, it has led us to perhaps the best canvas on which to depict our primal wants and fears: outer space. Sci-fi horror films such as "Alien" generate chills by capitalizing on what most frightens us about the universe: its darkness, its mystery, and, most of all, the fact that human beings can't and maybe shouldn't control it. Following in this tradition, "Pitch Black" uses outer space to denote the insecurity of man and emphasizes a moral struggle as well as a primitive one. It creates an anti-hero who wrestles not only with a hostile world but with himself, and who thereby symbolizes atonement for the failings that plague us all.

In a performance that sent him on the road to major stardom (arrival still pending), Vin Diesel stars as Richard Riddick, a convicted murderer who had his eyes surgically altered to absorb more light during a stint in a maximum security prison. After an unsuccessful attempt at freedom, Riddick finds himself on board a space transport with about 40 travelers when the ship crashes on a desert planet. His captor, a slippery fellow with shifting priorities (Cole Hauser), and the pilot of the ship, a no-nonsense woman named Carolyn (Radha Mitchell), round up the survivors and begin planning their escape when the inevitable occurs: one of their number strays off alone and is eaten. The situation doesn't get really grim, however, until all three of the planet's suns are eclipsed and the native inhabitants --- cranky pterodactyl-things who abhor light --- abandon their lairs looking to feed. It then falls to Riddick, as the one with the best night vision and biggest biceps, to lead the group to safety. The question is, does he want to? Or is he really just a cold-blooded killer who only looks out for himself?

Director David Twohy (who co-wrote with Ken and Jim Wheat) sticks to the tried-and-true formula of the horror movie but embellishes it with a crisp narrative style and a particularly ethical spin. While the secondary characters comprise the standard mix of types (the worthless bourgeois, the holy man, the sympathetic kid), Carolyn and Riddick flavor the action with concepts of human corruption and expiation (and, for those who swing that way, God). They both have something to answer for, and both unexpectedly address their pasts by working for the benefit of others. It's interesting that in the give-and-take of their intertwined story arcs, the lesser crime receives the greater punishment, and Riddick is the one left to face a future (and a sequel) carrying the burden of redemption. Unlike most horror flicks, where annoying and evil people die and spunky people remain, here annoying, evil, and spunky people die, and the tortured soul, the man who introduces himself as an animal, lives to fight another day. As such, he seems to represent both the instinct to persevere and the conscience that compels us to think about our actions as we do so.

One can see why "The Chronicles of Riddick" will hit theaters next month (with a bigger budget and a more ambitious plot), for "Pitch Black" leaves the character with room to grow and history to explain. Still, Riddick's first outing is satisfying on its own, speaking to the desires that drive us, the doubts that plague us, and the connections that ultimately define us.

Copyright © 2004 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.