Someone out there really does love us: A Silent Hill Movie Review
Posted by Metallian on April 22nd, 2006 at 6:51 pm
So I'm back from the theater and my viewing of Silent Hill, and I am ecstatic. Some people have spent the past 24 hours panning the movie for everything they're worth, and it's true it's no Oscar contender. Then again some of these people enjoyed Hostel. So who can we trust here?
To be in the right frame of mind for Silent Hill, one must answer a simple question:
Has there ever been a good movie based on a video game?
If coming up with an answer took you longer than .003 seconds, you were either distracted or haven't seen enough movies. A few could be said to be faithful to the subject matter, but they still weren't enjoyable by anyone not under the influence. So did the creators of Silent Hill really do that much better? Hell Yes.
Silent Hill is very much a movie for fans of the games. I can't recall all the times I was tittering like a schoolgirl at familiar characters, street names, storefronts, locations and creatures. The movie borrows from all the games, most heavily 1 and 2. Not that it's a hodgepodge of their story elements scotch-taped together, the core tale of the town and the protagonist's search for her daughter is kinda original, but largely based on SH1 with some modification. At any rate it's cohesive, and while not totally compelling, it serves the flow of the movie well enough.
Very true to the atmosphere of Silent Hill, which really garnered what fame the games have earned, The town is a creepy, foggy, evil apparition where reality and psychosis are far too indistinguishable for comfort. Disturbing, masochistic visuals abound. Creepy sounds surround you. Unsettling creatures come suddenly and are best avoided rather than fought. In fact, the main character only makes ONE offensive effort in the whole movie, rather than exhibiting some unchracteristic action-hero component. She follows clues of her daughters whereabouts, leading her through a town haunted by much more than painful memories.
It isn't perfect, and a lot of reviews are whining rather petulantly about wooden acting, lame dialogue, and being to alienating to newcomers, more geared towards gamers.
BOO-FUCKING-HOO.
Do you guys even remember last year? if you don't it's cause you purposely tried to forget things like Doom and Bloodrayne and whatever other Uwe-Boll-esque crap was slung at us in a desperate attempt to fill theater seats. This is the best game-based movie EVER. But apparently giving Mr. Gift Horse a dental exam is what's popular these days. If anyone can name a video game, and ESPECIALLY a Silent Hill game devoid of lame dialogue, it's because it didn't have dialogue to begin with. And OF COURSE it's for fans. If not being Everything to Everyone is now a crime, I wish someone had let me know.
Someone finally got it right. While not for the aspiring anal-retentive movie critic, or the unindoctrinated (or children, there was a toddler weeping at my showing), it's an immensely entertaining 2 hours for the gaming faithful. An enjoyable thriller, actually recognizably similar to its source material, a classic game series. This one is a gift, and maybe if you all go see it, someone will get the picture that we like this kind of stuff. Two thumbs up, and an extra digit raised high to its detractors.
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