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As just such a fanatic, I admit to entering the screening of “Alone in the Dark” literally giddy with anticipation. First of all, it is based on a video game (though one old enough that anyone who played it when it first appeared is now probably out of the target demographic for the film), a genre which, “Resident Evil” aside, has hardly proven to be a fertile ground for cinematic adaptation. Additionally, it was directed by Uwe Boll, whose previous video-game movie, “House of the Dead” (which you may remember as the one that strangely attempted to include actual game footage into the film itself, right down to the PLAYER ONE/PLAYER TWO designations) led to comparisons with the immortal Ed Wood–comparisons which inevitably found Boll on the losing end. Finally, it features Tara Reid in the role of a brilliant archeologist/museum curator in perhaps the most unlikely casting decision since Denise Richards played a nuclear scientist in a James Bond film. Amazingly, “Alone in the Dark” not only manages to live up to expectations for such a combination, but it actually exceeds them.<

In fact, Boll manages to botch things right from the start with the inexplicable decision to open his film with what seems like five minutes of scrolling text (though read aloud for slower viewers) that attempts to explain the entire story in ponderous detail. That would be fine (hey, it worked for “Star Wars”) except that this scroll is twice as long, half as interesting and somehow manages to simultaneously give away every single plot point while still remaining absolutely impenetrable to even the geekiest of geeks. What it boils down to is that an evil scientist discovered an ancient alien race on Earth and has been working endlessly to find artifacts that will allow them to run free and do something wildly evil. For his part, he tries to help out by working on a mysterious government program that utilized a group of orphans that were genetically fused, I think, with alien stuff in their spines–all except for one, who was cured by electrocuting himself and growing up into Christian Slater. A world-renowned paranormal investigator/adventurer (or something), he learns that his fellow orphans have mysteriously disappeared. With the aid of his archaeologist girlfriend (Reid) and government-issue paranormal investigators led by Stephen Dorff, he tries to stop the monsters before they can break free and do whatever it is that they plan to do. (It has been less than 90 minutes since I emerged from the screening and I still couldn’t tell you what their plan entailed.)

Enough about the plot, let’s get to the good stuff. There is a car chase and a shootout where Boll inexplicably cuts to slow-motion for absolutely no explainable reason beyond the fact that he thought it might look cool. There is the explanation that the monsters hate the light, perhaps because it would allow us to better see the cheesy CGI effects. There is every single moment where Tara Reid does archaeological stuff, such as put on glasses to let us know that she is Really Smart (though I wish that someone could have explained to her how to pronounce “Newfoundland” properly.) There is Slater’s brilliant explanation of why he hasn’t spoken to her in six months. There is the out-of-nowhere sex scene that, alas, spares us a look at the infamous breast augmentation that might have generated the one true moment of horror to be had here. There is the big action centerpiece where everyone is unloading their weapons (including the crack-shot museum curator) that is put together in such a confusing way that, based on the visual evidence that is seen, every person should have been killed by stray bullets. There is the scene in which Dorff and Slater (who both look embarrassed beyond belief) have a toe-to-toe yelling match that looks more like a game of Duelling Nicholsons. Whoops, almost forgot the final shot, where Boll can’t quite decide if he is ripping off “Resident Evil” or “The Evil Dead” and so gives us a reprise of the finales of both.

For reasonable moviegoers, there is no reason on Earth why you should waste your valuable time and money on the likes of “Alone in the Dark,” a film whose only obvious distinction is that it has been put together with slightly more competence than “House of the Dead” (which says more about “House of the Dead” than anything else). And yet, for the vast numbers of unreasonable moviegoers out there, the sheer stupidity of the film could provide more inadvertent entertainment than most of the other films they are likely to encounter this year. As a fairly unreasonable moviegoer myself, I must admit that while it doesn’t hit the highs/lows of trash classics such as “Congo” or “Resident Evil,” it is never boring and and frequently hilarious. Because it fails at its intended goals, I am giving the film one star. If you are an unreasonable moviegoer, feel free to add two or three more; if you are reasonable, you might want to subtract one instead.

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link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=11468&reviewer=389
originally posted: 01/28/05 17:18:40
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