TOO MUCH GRAY IN 'BLACK'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

Down-on-their-luck space humans crash-land on a desert planet populated by strange, dangerous things.

You've seen it before. ``Pitch Black'' doesn't do it particularly worse or better than the median ``Alien''-attrition norm.

Radha Mitchell (``High Art'') is the pilot, Fry, who loses most of the ship and its sleeping passengers in the accident. She feels guilty for the rest of the movie, especially about almost jettisoning the pod containing the few survivors in order to save herself.

Except for bounty hunter Johns (Cole Hauser) and his violent captive Riddick (Vin Diesel), the castaways are essentially defined by their expendability. Keith David's Imam and a few kids are presented as devout Muslims - for no compelling reason other than they make good vehicles for questioning God's mercy in a horror film.

An abandoned mining station is found where there's an old ship that may be used for rescue. They also find nasty things with wings, tentacles and very active teeth lurking underground. But the creatures aren't too urgent a threat, since they're allergic to light - and the planet fortunately revolves around three suns (an astronomical phenomenon that's never explained).

Things get edgy when Riddick escapes his bonds. But that's nothing compared to what happens when the Saharan spaceball enters an unanticipated total eclipse.

You never get a good, complete look at any of the monsters, but to compensate for that there seem to be many of them. Director David Twohy, who co-wrote ``The Fugitive,'' overexposes the blistering daytime footage and shoots the night stuff, well, dark. In this way, the movie is rudimentarily cinematic.

Acting doesn't count so much as the illusion of endurance in a project like this. Whatever allotted time they have before being violently yanked off the screen, the actors endure. Fry and the not-thoroughly-evil Riddick have redemption issues and a certain animal attraction to contend with as well, so Mitchell and Diesel get a little extra work.

Some of it's scary and some of it isn't. There is gore, but you've seen worse.

You won't waste your time watching ``Pitch Black.'' But there are better things to do.

The facts

--The film: ``Pitch Black'' (R; violence, language, drug use, children in jeopardy).

--The stars: Vin Diesel, Radha Mitchell, Cole Hauser, Keith David.

--Behind the scenes: Directed by David Twohy. Written by Twohy and Jim and Ken Wheat. Produced by Tom Engelman. Released by USA Films.

--Running time: One hour, 47 minutes.

--Playing: Citywide.

--Our rating: Two and one half stars

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Photo: Vin Diesel stars as the violent captive Riddick in ``Pitch Black.''