Alone In the Theater...
This weekend, my wife and I took the time to cozy-up in the theater and watch a couple of movies. While I plan on detailing them both, I wanted to be sure to wave-off anyone in the near vicinity of one of the offers -- "Alone In the Dark" starring Christian Slater.
To fill people in on the "proposed" plot, here is the description from everyone's favorite movie-factoid website, The Internet Movie Database.
"Alone In the Dark" Based on the video game, Alone in the Dark focuses on Edward Carnby, a detective of the paranormal, who slowly unravels a mysterious events with deadly results. Edward Carnby (Slater), detective of the paranormal, unexplained and supernatural, investigates a mystery (the recent death of a friend) with clues leading to "Shadow Island" that brings him face to face with bizarre horrors that prove both psychologically disturbing and lethal, as he discovers that evil demons worshiped by an ancient culture called the Abskani are planning on coming back to life in the 21st century to once again take over the world... and only he and a young genius anthropologist with an incredible memory (and his ex-girlfriend), Aline Cedrac (Reid), stand in their way, at a gateway to hell. Standing in Carnby's way, however, is the impact that a brief encounter with an evil spirit called the Queen had upon his mind, as he slowly finds himself overpowered by the forces of darkness as they eat away at his very sanity..."
The accurate irony of the last few words there is haunting. I have been a Christian Slater fan for a long time. From his earliest works to some of the lesser but still solid portrayals recently, he offers something I'm usually willing to watch and go along with. Murder in the First, Pump Up the Volume, Broken Arrow, and a variety of others are pieces of my collection and they really provide some great storytelling and acting samples. When "Alone In the Dark" offered Slater up as a detective, and that the film was based on a video/computer game of the same name, I was ready to see what there was to offer. I had no idea how unprepared I was.
From the VERY LONG, STAR WARS-like reading session (it's actually longer than any of the STAR WARS intros - can you believe that?) that was inane and described a "lost civilization" I knew that something was askew. I am all for "lost civilizations", I'm all for treasure hunts, but this one decides that that is simply not enough to drive a movie. Roll in some very shoddy character development for just about every character on board, and an attention-span focus that will induce seizure, you've got a recipe for a very long 96 minutes.
Slater pulls off probably the first 20 minutes of the movie, but eventually his role and the movie spirals into something that is a mix of bad B horror movie and a sample reel of how not to produce a movie. While I am completely unfamiliar with how the game worked when playing it on the computer, I surely would have had to consider an icepick for my eyesocket if it had anything to do with the content of this movie. When you take that and feature moderate-level CGI effects (that looked like they might have come from today's computer games rather than a movie studio pushing film-level special effects), you have clearly initiated a recipe for cinematic disaster.
With a mix of pseudo-zombies being controlled by symbiotic organisms that latch onto 19 orphans spines (luckily, number 20 Slater was electrocuted the nite they were installed in the rest and was 'saved'), dog-like CGI-things that are not only not scary, but stupid and loud, and a compliment of "Section 713 Soldiers" that are armed with black, short-sleeved T-Shirts and bicycle helmets (this is the army that's going to stop Armageddon?), this movie is one of the few movies I nearly considered turning off with more than half the movie left to go.
Try again, Christian - try again.
To fill people in on the "proposed" plot, here is the description from everyone's favorite movie-factoid website, The Internet Movie Database.
"Alone In the Dark" Based on the video game, Alone in the Dark focuses on Edward Carnby, a detective of the paranormal, who slowly unravels a mysterious events with deadly results. Edward Carnby (Slater), detective of the paranormal, unexplained and supernatural, investigates a mystery (the recent death of a friend) with clues leading to "Shadow Island" that brings him face to face with bizarre horrors that prove both psychologically disturbing and lethal, as he discovers that evil demons worshiped by an ancient culture called the Abskani are planning on coming back to life in the 21st century to once again take over the world... and only he and a young genius anthropologist with an incredible memory (and his ex-girlfriend), Aline Cedrac (Reid), stand in their way, at a gateway to hell. Standing in Carnby's way, however, is the impact that a brief encounter with an evil spirit called the Queen had upon his mind, as he slowly finds himself overpowered by the forces of darkness as they eat away at his very sanity..."
The accurate irony of the last few words there is haunting. I have been a Christian Slater fan for a long time. From his earliest works to some of the lesser but still solid portrayals recently, he offers something I'm usually willing to watch and go along with. Murder in the First, Pump Up the Volume, Broken Arrow, and a variety of others are pieces of my collection and they really provide some great storytelling and acting samples. When "Alone In the Dark" offered Slater up as a detective, and that the film was based on a video/computer game of the same name, I was ready to see what there was to offer. I had no idea how unprepared I was.
From the VERY LONG, STAR WARS-like reading session (it's actually longer than any of the STAR WARS intros - can you believe that?) that was inane and described a "lost civilization" I knew that something was askew. I am all for "lost civilizations", I'm all for treasure hunts, but this one decides that that is simply not enough to drive a movie. Roll in some very shoddy character development for just about every character on board, and an attention-span focus that will induce seizure, you've got a recipe for a very long 96 minutes.
Slater pulls off probably the first 20 minutes of the movie, but eventually his role and the movie spirals into something that is a mix of bad B horror movie and a sample reel of how not to produce a movie. While I am completely unfamiliar with how the game worked when playing it on the computer, I surely would have had to consider an icepick for my eyesocket if it had anything to do with the content of this movie. When you take that and feature moderate-level CGI effects (that looked like they might have come from today's computer games rather than a movie studio pushing film-level special effects), you have clearly initiated a recipe for cinematic disaster.
With a mix of pseudo-zombies being controlled by symbiotic organisms that latch onto 19 orphans spines (luckily, number 20 Slater was electrocuted the nite they were installed in the rest and was 'saved'), dog-like CGI-things that are not only not scary, but stupid and loud, and a compliment of "Section 713 Soldiers" that are armed with black, short-sleeved T-Shirts and bicycle helmets (this is the army that's going to stop Armageddon?), this movie is one of the few movies I nearly considered turning off with more than half the movie left to go.
Try again, Christian - try again.
posted by Mike Wilkerson - 2GuysTalking at 4:51 PM
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