Pitch Black (Blu-ray)
It’s the film that unwittingly launched a major (if uneven) franchise
Tags: The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena Categories: DVD/TV Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Apr 15th, 2009
I think this is merely a port of a port – which is really weird. I wonder if Universal is having a financial crisis and not hiring people because Pitch Black on Blu-ray is very much not what it should be. Quite often in the special features this is referred to as the special edition DVD. Pitch Black was released on HD-DVD previously, which ported over the special edition, but aside from a few token exclusives, this Blu-ray release is merely a warmed over retread that isn’t worth more than a visual upgrade, and an expensive one at that.
You want further proof that this is just a port of a port? The trailer is missing, which was missing on the HD-DVD. Further proof? There’s a featurette on the Chronicles of Riddick game. The problem is not that it’s a lame featurette (which it is) but that it is for the previous game, Escape from Butcher Bay on the Xbox, not the new Assault on Dark Athena for the Xbox 360 and PS3.
Oh, sure, you can watch either the theatrical or extended (by just a couple of minutes) unrated (huh?) director’s cut, but it is the special features, and complete lack of anything really new that makes this just not worth picking up.
Pitch Black was a good movie, introducing a legion of fans to the criminal known as Riddick. This action/thriller was a fairly “under the radar” release that shouldn’t have been as good as it was. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the film wound up being more popular than expected, and actually kind of good. Part Alien, part Die Hard, Pitch Black finds its own niche and delivers a good story. Sure, a few too many bodies are piled up before the eventual escape, perhaps a few too many of them all too expected. Still, even though it isn’t original it is fun to watch.
Yet this Blu-ray release is so far from being what fans deserve that it isn’t worth having been released. Sure, there’s new picture in picture content with interviews and special effects deconstruction, but with so much ported over and either outdated and obsolete (such as the game “featurette”) or missing or incomplete that this like a slap in the face to fans. Besides, the two picture in picture items are separate tracks, but neither takes up half the film’s running time. They should have been combined and expanded to create something truly compelling for the Blu-ray release.
Of course, this would actually require somebody at Universal to be putting together a decent package in the first place. Jeez, even the stuff about the animated entry in the franchise is nothing more than a commercial for what was then either a new release or a product that was in development. Much better would have been to include The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury.
This is why I wonder if Universal is having a problem in the personnel department. There is apparently nobody working in quality control.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
| + Decent genre picture | 5.5 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- Lack of quality control in the special features and disc setup - Film gets too predictable |
|
| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| The film deserves much better. This was perhaps meant to tie in to the release of The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena game that was recently released, but no mention is made of it. Somebody is very much asleep at the wheel of the Universal Studios Home Entertainment Bus. | |
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Tags: The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Apr 15th, 2009 and is filed under DVD/TV Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
