Alone in the Dark (2005)

Just perfect...

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Alone in the Dark is one of the early films in Uwe Boll's career which went nationwide into theaters which has helped kill his career. This is considered one of his worst films and one of his worst reviewed films since it was one of his biggest. Based on a video game (having not played) I had no thoughts how decent an adaptation of the movie is to the game. With this movie, it is everything in which it has been criticized for. It is terrible, messy, confusing and hard to follow. Things do occur but it is confusing and a boring watch. The film takes itself too serious which hurts it. It isn't one of those typical cheesy "it's so bad it's good" films that are bad films but still entertaining and unintentionally funny. Alone in the Dark is just bad and it isn't funny. For a decent sized budget film (having a $20 million budget), Alone in the Dark feels cheap and the story is very weak. There could have been at least some thrills, suspense or jump scenes but it was very bland, uninteresting and even the creatures looked unsatisfying. This felt more like a cheap Sci- Fi low budget television series if anything. In the end, you may find yourself wondering what you have just watched and what the film was about.

It was inevitable that I'd get around to seeing a Uwe Boll film sooner or later. The German director is widely regarded as a modern day Ed Wood, incapable only of churning out a string of god-awful genre flicks packed with bad acting, worse effects and a complete lack of talent. ALONE IN THE DARK is the title of a popular PC game that went on to spawn sequels and remakes on plenty of other computers and consoles, and this is the filmic adaptation. And it's a pile of pants.You know you're off to a bad start when the opening scrolling text begins. And then goes on. And on. And on. Basically there's more story condensed here than in the rest of the film, and that's because test audiences left confused, wondering what the heck the film was about, and the opening scroll was tacked on afterwards. Then, to my surprise, things got cheesy and quite a bit of fun. We meet up with Christian Slater, playing a muscular, vest-wearing hero type, and watch his encounter with a superhuman skinhead who leaps great heights and takes bullets with seemingly no pain or effect. Boll's direction is hyper and wannabe stylish, and this sequence is a hoot.Then things get really bad, with a muddled story about an evil professor, a museum relic that comes to life and a tactical unit of wannabe SWAT guys fighting monsters. The monsters are bad – half the creatures seen in HELLBOY, half THE RELIC – but the slithery worm things that live in people's spines are pretty neat, a nice gross out idea. The film moves on from there with a series of poorly connected set-pieces, all of them predictable and done to death a million times previously. There are explosions, shoot outs and a few mild gore scenes, although one shot of a woman's head split open is pretty near the knuckle.I find it difficult to dislike Slater. He has this nice guy persona in every film I've seen and he seems slick and cool here. Even the bit of crumpet on his shoulder (AMERICAN PIE's Tara Reid) isn't too irritating. Then there's Stephen Dorff, who I last saw in the awful haunted house movie COLD CREEK MANOR, and he isn't bad either, playing a hard-ass commander. Maybe Boll is better at directing actors than he is at directing stories.Anyway, things play out predictably, and it all washes over you with its inanity and pointlessness. Yes, this is a bad film. Is it one of the worst films ever? I doubt that. It's actually on the level of a Sci Fi Original movie, except with a higher budget. 'Pretty trashy' and 'nothing to get excited about' sum up this film nicely for me.

Story: I am going to first look at this only as a story, no opinions on the CGI or casting choices. If you were to look at the story as a solo idea you get a solid action horror. Now I hear people going 'no its just crap' so let's look at the details. First off we have an idea of scientific experiment on children to create sleepers, but something goes wrong so we don't see why it happened until more discoveries in the future. Then we have a search for hidden treasures of a lost ancient people. Add in a paranormal investigator, a secret government paranormal investigating team and the search for a truth. Now looking at those factors we should have a good story not special but enjoyable. Now with terrible casting decisions, awful CGI and a script that could have been written but a child everything goes south fast. As an idea for a story this is good, but as an execution of a story it's bad. (5/10)Actor ReviewChristian Slater: Edward Carnby a paranormal investigator who has been trying to uncover the truth about his childhood, this puts him in danger as this time he has got closer than ever before. He must team up with his old organisation to final uncover the truth that has lost him the memories of his childhood. Slater strolls for this role without showing any of the skills that made him a star in the early 90s. (5/10)Tara Reid: Aline Cedrac assistant curator at the museum who also happens to be Edward's girlfriend, she gets caught up in the middle of the battle after she uncover the location of the door. Going to take a deep breath before going for this one, just no how did this happen? Try your luck in romantic comedies. (2/10)Stephen Dorff: Commander Burke leader of a military team trying to keep the monsters away from the public, old partner of Edward but after seeing the truth he teams up with them to uncover the truth. Stephen can act and has proved it many times, just need to give him something to work with. (4/10)Frank C Turner: Sam an old connection within the organisation that still communicates with Edward, he fills in the science gaps and you can guess what happens to him by the end. Basic supporting performance. (4/10)Matthew Walker: Professor Hudgens scientist trying to open the door to the truth about the ancient people, he will do anything to get his answers including sacrificing anybody who gets in his way. As villains go this is generic one that doesn't need too much to make them special. (4/10)Director Review: Uwe Boll – He not only managed to mess up a relatively easy story with awful CGI and lack of directing ideas. (2/10)Action: Plenty of guns being fired, not sure if they ever hit anything as everything is in the pitch black. (3/10)Horror: Doesn't give you any scares, frights, well made with the acting. (1/10)Settings: The settings used for the gun fights are used well, because they would make real settings for such a discover if someone wanted to keep it quiet. (6/10) Special Effects: Terrible special effects that I only saw one good one and that was a soldier's head split in two. (1/10)Suggestion: I think if you are bored one night and this is on it would be acceptable to watch it as it slips close to the line of so bad you have to see. (Late Night TV)Best Part: The ideaWorst Part: The CGI, Acting and Execution of the idea.Believability: No (0/10)Chances of Tears: No (0/10)Chances of Sequel: Actually has one sequelPost Credits Scene: NoOscar Chances: NoBox Office: $10 MillionBudget: $20 MillionRuntime: 1 Hour 39 MinutesTagline: Can mankind defeat the army of darkness unleashed by an ancient evil cult?Overall: Not only did this film destroy the source material, it ruined any chance the video game had of returning.Check out more reviews on http://moviesreview101.com/

I'm in no hurry to get in the boxing ring with director Uwe Boll, a man who has been known to use his pugilistic skills to silence his less favourable critics, but I have got to say that this horror/action film (apparently based on an Atari video game) is utterly diabolical—far worse than I ever expected (my opinion of Boll had been reasonably high after seeing Rampage, which was surprisingly effective).The long-winded opening narration is the first clue that this is going to stink: ancient civilisations, evil creatures from another world, a secret organisation devoted to investigation of the paranormal, and a mad scientist experimenting on orphaned children are clumsily thrown together in an attempt to establish the background to the film, but they only succeed in confusing the viewer before things have even begun. Matters are made even more incomprehensible with a prologue that occurs '22 years ago' but which segues into the present day and proceeds to introduce even more mind-bogglingly random elements to ensure that even the most astute of viewers will be completely baffled.As the film progresses, more and more nonsensical garbage is haphazardly thrown into the mix, Boll's pointless directorial stylisms making everything impossible to follow, with the occasional voice-over by Christian Slater (intended to help explain matters) only adding to the embarrassment factor. Ridiculous voice-overs aside, Slater's performance isn't all that bad, but his co-star Tara Reid is absolutely terrible and was clearly hired for her looks (yet she doesn't even have the decency to take off her bra during the obligatory sex scene!).After much frenetic shooting, a smattering of reasonably fun gore, some choice snippets of lousy dialogue ('Some doors are meant to stay shut') and lots of naff CGI creature attacks, during which Boll throws in some lousy Indiana Jones-style adventure and a scene completely ripped off from James Cameron's Aliens (the Xenos—yes the monsters ARE called that—obliterate a team of soldiers, despite the use of automated sentry guns), the film wraps up leaving the viewer none the wiser about what they have witnessed.