Alone in the Dark II

I always rate films I turned off as the lowest possible, and with Alone in the Dark 2, I could bear no more after only 35 minutes!

I'm not a harsh judge of films, and I like to give them a chance to improve (hell, I sat through the entirety of the first one), but when the writing is such an absolute mess as this was, I knew already after 10 minutes that it had the go, and had totally given up on it after 20. The next 15 minutes were spent on me trying to use The Force to get the controller from the table.

Hmm, so what's this film all about?

Who cares? No, seriously, if you're curious or dumb enough to give it a go, you'll soon realise that this is a spot-on assessment.

Some people die, there's some CGI mist, meant to be a ghostly witch, a dagger, some kind of infection, some weird racial transformation of the lead from the first film, some boring stuff, some nonsensical stuff... You get the point.

Anyway, my summary above really does sum it all up, but for those who still need further warning: AVOID!

With a DVD follow-up of the original "Alone in the Dark" movie, my prejudgment whispered in my ear that this will be just another worthless follower. Actually, it wasn't that bad. The film had a much smaller budget than the original, but you could probably guess that since this was a straight to video movie. The cast is great and fun to watch. OK, this film is never going to win an Oscar. It takes itself to seriously, the effects are occasionally ropey (but good considering the budget) and the acting is not always up to De Nero's standard. But this is a great B movie. The cinematography is actually quite good considering the shooting time and the lighting in extremely good.

ALONE IN THE DARK 2 is a sequel that has virtually nothing in common with the first film except for the main character this time played by DIE ANOTHER DAY's Rick Yune but it is in a way better than the first one because it has a well put together storyline that is well fleshed out and the direction is very nicely handled, the best part is Uwe Boll didn't even direct this one.

The acting is a case of hit and miss, some of cast hit their mark such as Bill Moseley and Lance Henriksen that both play their parts convincingly, the one cast member that misses the most is Rick Yune, I also saw him in a film called THE 5TH COMMANDMENT and between this one and that one, the ideal leading man he is not because he doesn't bring any energy to his character which results in him failing to carry the film.

The fact that this film is better shows that the writers and directors Peter Scheers and Micheal Roesch put in more effort with this film than Uwe Boll did with the first, so take notes Mr. Boll you might learn something.

Didn't hope for much when I sat down to watch this but, as said, it was a better than expected. I found this sequel to be a competent little B-movie in its own right. Expect low budget, but not too bad - i've seen much worse in special effects and overall production. However, on its own terms it's a successful movie. It is much smaller in scale due to the lower budget, and is basically a retreat of the "group of people trapped" formula. There can't be any doubt that the movie could have been made better with more time and money its still however a considerate addition to a storyline with vast potential. The new cast is very good, possibly better than the cast in the first movie. Not the best movie I've ever seen, but it's definitely a keeper.

So this film was like a B-Movie that didn't know it was a B-Movie. So it's playing everything really straight, and serious when the script is kind of ridiculous.

The special effects are awful, if some of them would have spent time alone in the dark. Then maybe they could have hid some of the bad CGI. They were so bad I was shocked by how late the film is, because the overall quality also seems like it was filmed years ago.

I think if you like terrible films, you might find it a little entertaining. Some moments do seem really over the top, and the music choices are often over dramatic as well. I don't think it was a complete waste of time, but I do wish I would have been drunk with friends whilst watching it.