Pitch Black falters a bit in its last half-hour-the film's darkest moment reduces Diesel to delivering a pithy one-liner-but for the most part, it's terrific.

| Oct 17, 2018

David Twohy's film undoubtedly has something interesting about it, and that something can be summarised in two words: Vin Diesel.

| Oct 17, 2018

A smart, suspenseful sci-fi movie from director Twohy, whose underrated 1996 film, The Arrival, also brought visual imagination and intelligence to the genre.

| Jun 24, 2006

Features some lovingly crafted effects -- notably director of photography David Eggby's bleached colour palette -- and some vivid characterisation.

| Dec 3, 2002

The script is a compendium of science-fiction clichs, familiar in Hollywood movies since the early fifties.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 22, 2002

It is an entertainment and quite a good one too.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 17, 2001

[David Twohy] tweaks this formulaic escape-from-hell story with just enough original touches to give it a lift.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 1, 2000

A mediocre but nonetheless entertaining copy of the Alien films.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 1, 2000

Proving that low-budget genre-based entertainment can be just as easily ferociously inventive and character-driven as its big-budget competition can be lazy and boring.

Full Review | Jan 1, 2000

How sad it is that humans travel countless light years away from Earth, only to find themselves inhabiting the same tired generic conventions.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 1, 2000

Pitch Black is one of those annoyingly noisy outer-space thrillers where you can't figure out the characters' names at first, and when you finally do, they are either dead or you hate them.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 1, 2000

Ferocious attacks by the planet's monstrous creatures manage only partially to alleviate the tedium that defines the movie.

Full Review | Jan 1, 2000

Made to please those who can't get enough rote, cheesy sci-fi, Pitch Black promises to make us long for the glory days of Species 2 and Deepstar Six.

Full Review | Jan 1, 2000

A very streamlined exercise in interplanetary mayhem and the logistics of the body count.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 1, 2000

Neither scary nor exciting nor much of anything, save eyestrain.

Full Review | Jan 1, 2000

Dumb, direct and derivative.

Full Review | Jan 1, 2000

In the movie's last hour, writer-director David Twohy pretends to explore his stick figures' moral choices, and he forgets to deliver the thrills.

Full Review | Jan 1, 2000

Barely intermittent, reminding us that the B-movie is still very much with us.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 1, 2000

The film works because it's strong on fundamentals: fear of the dark, fear of helplessness, fear of the unknown, and fear of unpredictable human behavior.

Full Review | Jan 1, 2000

This is filmmaking that's lean, mean and (in Diesel) boasts one hell of a fighting machine.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 1, 2000