Some say director Uwe Boll is a hack. Some say he's talentless. Some say he's destroying perfectly good video games by making movies based on them. Anyone who ever spoke those words is correct. Alone in the Dark is his second game adaptation, and while his first (House of the Dead) can be viewed as totally ridiculous, inept entertainment, that doesn't fly with this creature feature.
Barely following any of the four games in the series, Alone in the Dark goes with the old "don't mess with an ancient civilization" routine to get started. The opening moments are the films brightest, and give viewers a false sense of security that just maybe this will be a decent flick. It's filled with a great fight and an awesome bullets-POV shot that is the movie's best. After that, turn it off.
Whoever thought Tara Reid could be taken seriously as a scientist of any type should be fired as a casting director. Christian Slater is the lead and is oddly strong in his role, ignoring the written dialogue he was given that's completely devoid of purpose. From the start, this is a nearly direct rip-off of the far better Relic, set up in a museum with an ancient beast on the loose.
Everything that happens here is bad. There's not an other adjective to make it any less painful, and it's not worth anyone's time to find one. There's a sequence where you can see nothing but gunfire and the actors against obviously super-imposed walls fighting against the not-yet-known to the audience antagonist. It never seems to end, and it feels like most of the action from House of the Dead, though thankfully Boll decided not to sloppily insert footage from the game like he did in his first movie.
It's a shame too, because the monster is a cool concept, able to camouflage itself in the dark, and the full reveals showcase a nice design, even if they are completely obvious as CG effects. The last half hour does pick things up with an intense stand off and brutal gore. It's almost enough to make it seem like this is tolerable.
Article comments
1 - Tan The Man
House of the Dead was really bad... can't imagine anything worse, but your review says there might be...
2 - Kris
I just suffered through the DVD of Alone in the Dark. It started out alright, but then just kept getting worse. I was compelled to warn others about the waste of time that is this movie. This review was right on. I'd just like to add that the background music was ill-fitting and too loud (it drowns out the pointless dialogue). Zero stars.