When Pitch Black was released in 1999, it made just short of $40 million at the box office. Not a flop, but not a runaway hit either. One reason may be that viewers expected one more example of an overused formula: Trap some cardboard characters someplace with a nasty monster, then kill them off one by one until only the hero and love interest are left to destroy the creature and escape.

That's too bad, because Pitch Black is one of those rare films that works its formula to tell a more ambitious story. These survivors aren't there just to be eaten--even the ones who eventually are. The supporting cast, including Farscape's Claudia Black, are nuanced and intriguing. And the main characters burn in moral crucibles even more dangerous than the creatures.

Similarly, the special effects are mostly excellent, but always exist to serve the story rather than for their own sake. A great example is the harsh lighting that washes out exterior scenes with different colors as the suns shift. It's a simple effect, but does a lot to place viewers in the alien setting. The opening starship crash, shots in Riddick's night vision and the creatures' static-filled echo-location sense are also highlights. And then there are the creatures. They exist in darkness, and are brilliantly painted with sudden flashes of light, or seen as lurking forms in the shadows. They are always moving, always enigmatic.

Not everything is perfect. The ecology of the alien world doesn't stand up to scrutiny, the dialogue can become overwrought, and Vin Diesel's Riddick is so dynamic that he sometimes overwhelms the other characters. But those are minor quibbles. Every frame of Pitch Black shows how much its creators love making movies, which makes viewers feel it as well.

Pitch Black is available in both its R-rated theatrical version and this unrated one. The differences are very minor, adding up to an extra four minutes in the unrated version. A couple of scenes run a few lines longer, adding dimension to some minor characters. One character's death is slightly gorier than it appeared in the R-rated cut, showing a monster biting off the victim's head. This represents about a second of film and, like Obi-Wan Kenobi cutting off a foe's arm in Star Wars, appears to be there solely to manipulate the rating.