THE WHOLE NINE YARDS, directed by Jonathan Lynn, written by Mitchell Kapner. Rated PG-13. Running time: 101 minutes.

Jonathan Lynn’s “The Whole Nine Yards” is a big surprise, a film that takes a tired genre — the hit-man comedy — turns it on its side, and produces very funny farce.

Director Lynn and his screenwriter, Mitchell Kapner, know exactly how to approach their material; indeed, they know what it takes for this sort of farce to work and work well — a dense, satisfying plot wrapped around a likable group of characters caught in the unthinkable.

The film follows Matthew Perry’s Nicholas “Oz” Oseransky, a downtrodden, browbeaten, Montreal-based dentist whose marriage to the cheap, miserable, chain-smoking sexpot Sophie (Rosanna Arquette in an inspired, career-lifting performance) is about to be snuffed after the arrival of a new neighbor.

That new neighbor is Jimmy “The Tulip” Tudeski (Bruce Willis), a contract killer Oz immediately recognizes as the man who famously ratted out the Hungarian Gogolak Gang of Chicago.

Now, with the leader of Gogolak Gang, Janni (Kevin Pollak), hot on The Tulip’s tail, the film cleverly reveals its cold heart — with the exception of Oz, everyone here wants somebody else iced.

Sparked by its excellent cast, especially Michael Clarke Duncan’s performance as a good-humored hit man and Amanda Peet’s fun turn as a dental assistant who sees contract killing as a perfect career choice, if only because it offers room for growth, “The Whole Nine Yards” goes all the way in keeping just ahead of its audience with extreme plot reversals and sudden character revelations.

That’s not easy to do and do well, but Lynn and his cast nevertheless have a terrific time proving just how well it can be done. Grade: B+

PITCH BLACK, directed by David Twohy, written by Twohy and Jim and Ken Wheat. Running time: 107 minutes. Rated R.

David Twohy’s sci-fi thriller “Pitch Black” sees clearly through the dark, murky world of less successful sci-fi movies.

It’s a good student who has learned from the pitfalls of the genre — weak premise, messy plot, terrific special effects at the cost of thinly drawn characters — and uses that knowledge to create a world filled with believable characters, genuine suspense, and creepy moments of horror that grab and linger within the gathering darkness.

Nothing in this film is new — audiences have seen much of this before in other movies, particularly “Alien” and “Mad Max,” the latter of which has obviously inspired Twohy’s vision of a desolate future filled with lost souls. But Twohy (“The Arrival,” “Disaster in Time”) is nevertheless able to make it all seem fresh, sometimes startlingly so.

His film opens with a spaceship falling from space and slamming spectacularly into an unknown planet with three suns (this sequence alone is worth the price of the ticket). There, the ship’s nine survivors, including the female pilot, Fry (Radha Michell), lawman Johns (Cole Hauser) and the dangerous prisoner Riddick (Vin Diesel), learn they must take cover from the darkness of a rare solar eclipse — or else.

Indeed, as they learn early on in one particularly bloody scene, this planet holds a carnivorous secret — one that’s only let loose in the dark.

Shot in the same bleached tones as “Mad Max” and “Three Kings,” and punctuated throughout with Graeme Revell’s stirring tribal score, “Pitch Black” makes a fool out of the recent “Supernova” as it knows what “The Blair Witch Project” knew so well — real horror is best realized in the dark. Grade: B+

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear each Monday and Thursday in the NEWS, each Tuesday and Thursday on “NEWS CENTER 5:30 Today” and “NEWS CENTER Tonight,” and each Saturday and Sunday on NEWS CENTER’s statewide “Morning Report.”