Pitch Black is a futuristic film about a transport ship headed to other worlds, including New Mecca.  It encounters a meteor shower and crash lands on an ominous planet with three suns, no sign of food or water and only a handful of survivors.  Among the survivors is the docking pilot, Carolyn Fry, who becomes the reluctant captain; a Hindu holy man, Imam, and his followers; Paris, the antiquities dealer; Shazza, the prospector and mechanic; teenage Jack; muscular, convicted murderer Richard B. Riddick and his captor, Johns. 
 
The survivors set off to find water on the dead planet and find a geological settlement whose previous occupants have met a terrible fate.  The planet faces a solar eclipse and their only hope is to make it to the escape shuttle at the settlement with fuel cells from their ruptured ship.  The survivors initially fear the prisoner who escaped but soon find out that they are not alone.  They are terrorized by nocturnal creatures and discover they have to depend on the one man they fear the most. As the planet descends into darkness and the creatures emerge, only with Riddick's  night vision can they be lead to safety.
 
"They say your brain shuts down in cryosleep.  All but the primitive side.  The animal side.  No wonder I'm still awake."  This is our introduction to Richard B. Riddick.  I watch films for pure enjoyment and thought Pitch Black was exciting and scary.  The film's lighting and cinematography really made the planet seem desolate and the solar eclipse was magnificent.  "You're not afraid of the dark, are you?" asks Riddick and the answer is "Yes.  Yes, I am!"  Their plan to make it through the nightmarish darkness would have worked had it not been for fraidy-cat Paris, but I did feel sorry for him.  The  fight scene with Riddick and Johns was frightening given the green lighting from the flare.  When Riddick takes on one of the aliens to save Jack, I was blown away by his primitive sense of survival and glimpsed his humanity (something he thought his dark soul had lost).  Plus his line of "Didn't know what it was @#$% with." was bad-boy perfection.
 
I was fascinated by Riddick.  He is menacing and enigmatic at the same time (the perfect anti-hero)  You want to run from him but you can't turn away.  Most women that I know have at least one bad boy in their past.  The one that makes her really appreciate the good guy she has now.  But she always wishes she could have been the one to change the bad boy.  Vin Diesel brings that kind of intensity as Riddick.  The surgical shine job on Riddick's eyes (so he can see who's sneaking up on him in the dark at Slam) is so captivating that I could identify with Jack when she asks "Where the hell can I get eyes like that?"
 
My only gripe about this film was Fry's use of the F-word.  I was raised a good catholic girl and I do believe that there are acceptable times to say @#$%.  If the boogey man/creature is intending to kill or eat me, then @#$% will come flying out of my mouth!  However, I found that Fry would say sentences like "Let's go to the @#$% ship to get some @#$% fuel cells".  No validity for @#$% in a sentence like that.  The only exception to what I said above is Riddick.  As an escaped convict/murderer, his use of @#$% was appropriate as part of his character.