We all love video games, and a lot of us, I assume, love movies. Mix them together, and you get an epic combination, right? Well, maybe. Imagine you hear about a video game movie coming out in the near future. Then you hear that it will be directed by Uwe Boll. Ugh. For my first Video Game Movie Review, I'll take a look at 2005's movie adaptation of Alone in the Dark.
Alone in the Dark stars Christian Slater and Tara Reid and was directed by Uwe Boll. The story is more based on Alone in the Dark: A New Nightmare than the original trilogy. It focuses on Edward Carnby (the main character from the games) and his trying to discover what happened at the orphanage he grew up in after he lost his memory.
The film opens with a flashback to when Edward was ten, hiding from people with an agenda he doesn't agree with. They tell the Sister in charge of the orphanage to call the police and say all twenty of the children are missing. We cut to Edward waking up on plane, when he then proceeds to traumatize a young child beside him. We find out Edward has an artifact that belonged to an ancient Native American civilization that have importance to the plot later on.
Now, you see, Edward used to belong to an organization called Bureau 713. Bureau 713 was an organization who researched paranormal activity. Another member of this group was one Dr. Hudgens. He is now seen telling someone to kill Edward and get the artifact. So, Edward gets off the plane, gets in a taxi and has a wonderful conversation, when he notices another taxi has been following him for a while, now.
Action ensues. A car chase, followed by a fight scene ending up with a bullet riddled crazy man being impaled. Just like in the games, right? Well, Edward gets home and looks at his artifact. I'm going to skip ahead a bit to make it not boring. Hudgens finds another artifact he was looking for. In a crate made of gold. The captain of the ship he is on is greedy and decides to open it. This is a bad idea, apparently, beacause everyone on board gets slaughtered by an invisible, uh, thing. Except for Hudgens, who is thrown into another room.
Those invisible things are the main worry of the heroes. They are called Xenoes. Or Zenoes, or Xenos, whatever. They don't like light. They can disrupt light sources, save for the Sun. That makes it hard to not only see, but kill them. Now, alongside Edward, there is also Aline Cedrac and Commander Burke to help. But in the case of Aline, Tara Ried's character, 'help' is more like 'horrible acting'. Honestly, I don't usually see a lot of bad actors/actresses, but I hated when she even opened her mouth. Can't stand her.
After a creepy first encounter between Edward and the Xenoes, every other time we see a monster, the bullets start flying. That does not a good horror movie make. So, they find where the Xenoes are staying, and shoot 'em up. I forgot to mention that the nineteen other orphans are now killers that can't be killed unless a worm on their spine is. I don't even know. Also Hudgens is somehow behind everything. And the ending? I just don't know.
This movie is not as bad as they say it is. It's bad, of course, but not as bad as other movies. I guess it's the effects. They are really good, I found. Not as good as they could have been, but the monsters looked pretty cool. The other actors and actresses weren't too bad. Christian was great. Tara was horrible. Whoever played Hudgens was a bit over the top at times, but it's all good.
I wouldn't recommend this film to someone who would expect it to be good. It's a movie you watch to see how bad it is, then laugh at it. That's the sole reason I even bought it. Well, thus ends my first movie review. A new Look Back At... will be here soon, so look for that in the following month.
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