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Alone in the Dark 2 out of 10
Running time: 1:36 MPAA rating: R (Violence and language.) Peruvian rating: Mayores de 18
Cast:
Christian Slater,
Tara Reid, Stephen Dorff, Frank C. Turner, Matthew Walker, Will
Sanderson, Mark Acheson, Darren Shahlavi,
Karin Konoval. |
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Uwe Boll. It's a name that makes even the toughest of tough guys scream of fear. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially if you're the guy who portrays a serial killer in a movie, for example, but since Uwe Boll is a film director, I can't say it's a good thing. What I can say, actually, is that the guy's name and reputation is scarier than the actual "horror" movie he directed. In fact, the film's not scary at all: it's downright hilarious. From the cheesy dialogue to the "boo moments" to Tara Reid portraying a museum curator and Christian Slater trying to have sex with her with their clothes on, the movie's a riot. I guess I could classify the film as a guilty pleasure, or maybe put it in the "so-bad-it's-good" category, but since Mr. Boll seemed to take the movie really seriously (he reportedly complained about some of the early drafts because they hadn't "enough car chases") I'm not too tempted to do it. Alone in the Dark is a confusing, senseless mess of a motion picture. Period.
The movie tells the "story" of Edward Carnby, (Slater) a detective of the paranormal, who slowly unravels a mysterious events with deadly results. (I got this plot summary from the Internet Movie Database and yeah, that's the best way to resume the "plot".) He of course joins a hot chick who happens to be a "museum curator" (Tara Reid) and a tough military guy (Stephen Dorff) to track down and kill the big bad monsters. A question for videogame geeks: does this sound even remotely similar to the plot of the Alone in the Dark games? What... no? I thought so. Apart from Carnby's name, there's absolutely no resemblance to the game and, although some people might find it weird, the movie would have faired better if it had followed the game's plot. At least the game made sense. Some sense. The film is actually impossible to understand because it's so idiotic.
So, where do I begin? Throughout my experience of watching this film, I wondered what were these actors thinking when they talked to Mr. Boll and agreed to appear in the movie. Christian Slater, although not precisely the best actor around, was pretty promising in his early years, but has recently decided to appear only in really obscure films or direct-to-DVD movies. Alone in the Dark, although being released in theatres, won't do anything to revive his career. Tara Reid, on the other hand, never showed promised, but at least most of his acting appearances had been in decent or mediocre films. Stephen Dorff... now, I had actually liked this guy, he had been pretty good in a few movies, and seemed like a pretty smart guy, so I really wonder what's he doing in here. (His career is not doomed, though, and his recent appearance in the Hades Factor movie is not bad at all.) All these actors look really confused, not knowing what to do or how to react to the idiotic screenplay. The lines they have to recite are moronic, and I laughed more than once both at the things they said, and they way they said them. (Can't blame them, though.)
The special effects, as well as the set design and sound design are all awful. The sets look fake and unconvincing, and the monsters are incredibly cheesy. They seemed lifted from a horror movie parody. Actually, the whole film seemed like a parody. Even though it's billed as horror movie, it seems as if Boll actually wanted to make an action movie, and the film fails in both respects: it is neither scary nor exciting. The music, consisting mainly of awful metal songs and some typical horror "suspenseful" themes, could be used as means of torture in some countries. I mean, what's the point of watching an action scene with loud, metal songs as background music?
So whose fault is it that the film's so awful? Uwe Boll of course. His previous effort, House of the Dead, was pretty horrible, but watchable. Alone in the Dark is unwatchable. Boll directs with the skill of a stoned monkey, and the film's full of glitches and really stupid mistakes. (I mean, when was the last time you saw a dead girl opening her eyes at the end of a shot in a "professional" movie?) The "action" scenes are confusing and full of loud music and quick, MTV-style shots, the special effects are horrendous, the acting is laughable, and the plot makes absolutely no sense. I initially thought, given Mr. Boll's previous credits, this could be a bad-but-watchable film, but I was wrong. Alone in the Dark is simply awful, and I hope it will someday be used as torture for prisoners of war or something. Garbage like this would make me confess even the most important, ultra-classified government secret.
©2007 Sebastián Zavala - GG site