Alone in the Dark

I was honestly surprised by Alone in the Dark. It was so bad, I could hardly believe what I was seeing. There are no characters, just a few stereotypes wandering around and getting killed. The extent of the character development was giving each character a name and an occupation, and that's about it. There was no real plot, and none of the characters seemed to have any motivation. In fact, many action scenes just began on their own, coming from nowhere with a pounding techno track. While I was watching this movie I kept asking "Where is this happening? What's going on?" The acting was high school drama quality, with stiff wooden delivery, as though the actors were reading from cue cards without comprehending their lines. Their trouble delivering lines was made even more obvious by horrible sound design. ADR sounded like it was recorded in an open room. The actors were constantly taking obvious care to hit their marks, looking almost robotic in their movements. So, these listless automatons are whisked through a series of implausible and confusing scenarios, often without even the benefit of transition scenes. They were here, now they're there. This was happening, now that's happening. Random scenes with little rhyme or reason. I had a lot of fun watching it. Definitely not worth nine bucks though.

I'm in no hurry to get in the boxing ring with director Uwe Boll, a man who has been known to use his pugilistic skills to silence his less favourable critics, but I have got to say that this horror/action film (apparently based on an Atari video game) is utterly diabolical—far worse than I ever expected (my opinion of Boll had been reasonably high after seeing Rampage, which was surprisingly effective).

The long-winded opening narration is the first clue that this is going to stink: ancient civilisations, evil creatures from another world, a secret organisation devoted to investigation of the paranormal, and a mad scientist experimenting on orphaned children are clumsily thrown together in an attempt to establish the background to the film, but they only succeed in confusing the viewer before things have even begun. Matters are made even more incomprehensible with a prologue that occurs '22 years ago' but which segues into the present day and proceeds to introduce even more mind-bogglingly random elements to ensure that even the most astute of viewers will be completely baffled.

As the film progresses, more and more nonsensical garbage is haphazardly thrown into the mix, Boll's pointless directorial stylisms making everything impossible to follow, with the occasional voice-over by Christian Slater (intended to help explain matters) only adding to the embarrassment factor. Ridiculous voice-overs aside, Slater's performance isn't all that bad, but his co-star Tara Reid is absolutely terrible and was clearly hired for her looks (yet she doesn't even have the decency to take off her bra during the obligatory sex scene!).

After much frenetic shooting, a smattering of reasonably fun gore, some choice snippets of lousy dialogue ('Some doors are meant to stay shut') and lots of naff CGI creature attacks, during which Boll throws in some lousy Indiana Jones-style adventure and a scene completely ripped off from James Cameron's Aliens (the Xenos—yes the monsters ARE called that—obliterate a team of soldiers, despite the use of automated sentry guns), the film wraps up leaving the viewer none the wiser about what they have witnessed.

Whenever people think of Uwe Boll, they think of all of his films that can be considered bad. (If not terrible) And the film that most people point to as one of his worst is the 2005 release "Alone in the Dark." (Heck, it's the one I've seen many claim to be THE worst film he's made... and others claim it to be perhaps one of the worst films of all time.) It's the one that seems to get the most attention. The most publicity. And of course, the most hate.

I'm not in that camp, though. Oddly enough. In fact, I'd be willing to argue that despite being a fairly terrible film, "Alone in the Dark" to me is arguably one of his best video-game-to-film adaptations. Something about it comes off as borderline "So bad, it's good" to me. And I honestly found it to be perhaps the best-directed film in his entire filmography, at least from a visual/composition standpoint.

The film follows paranormal investigator Edward Carnby (Christian Slater), as he struggles against various otherworldly threats, including deadly creatures, underground caverns, the delusions of a mad scientist, and other forces. At the same time, he reconnects with an old flame (Tara Reid) and comes to odds with government Bureau 713 and a former comrade. (Stephen Dorff.)

The acting is... well. You know. ...bad. Slater is trying and seems to be having a blast, but he's still quite wooden. Reid is amusingly-bad in her attempts to come off as smart and serious. Dorff is probably the best, giving the only performance that seems SLIGHTLY decent. (Though still both over-done and under-done depending on the scene.) And supporting characters are all around the level of "meh."

The script is a fairly incomprehensible mess. From scene to scene, you can't really grasp what's happening, what's relevant (or irrelevant), what character motivations are, etc. There's a lot of bizarre leaps in focus and there isn't really any clearly defined focus or main conflict. The film seems to be made up of various meandering subplots that don't quite fit together. In addition, the cinematography is bland. The music is sub-par. Effects range from "excellent" (some early bullet-time effects, while tacky, are very well-executed) to "awful." (Some of the creature effects being laugh-out-loud bad.) And there's a lot of little issues here and there throughout the production and presentation.

This SHOULD be a 1 out of 10 film for sure. But there's just something about it. I just can't bring myself to give it that score.

In part, it's because I do honestly believe that this is one of Boll's better films. And I believe that here, he shows off perhaps the best visual direction of his entire career. It actually has a few really cool shots that are well-composed, there's at least some creativity shown (even though it doesn't work) through attempts to be moody or exciting with key sequences, and it has the most style out of anything he's really done. Don't get me wrong... the film still isn't particularly well-directed. But it seems to have the most effort put in by Boll out of any of his films. It isn't cheap and rushed like "House of the Dead", nor overly "gritty" and sloppy like everything he's done lately. It looks the most like an actual decently-budgeted movie out of all of his films.

In addition, something about this movie strikes me very-much as a great example of "so bad, it's good." Whether it be chuckling at lazy attempts to make characters look smart (giving Tara Reid glasses, for example), or poorly-executed action beats... I find this film very likable and entertaining because of how bad it is. And that counts for something.

I think that this is definitely not Boll's worst film at all. I don't even think it's in his bottom-5. I found it amusingly bad, and with a surprising amount of style and effort. And that effort alone makes it better than much of his other work.

I give this a very-bad 3 out of 10. Fans of bad movies (like me) should definitely give it a shot. You just might find it entertaining!

I don't know where to begin. Tara Reid needs to be stopped before she's put in another movie. Stephen Dorff looks like he got his character's motivation from Val Kilmer in "Top Gun". Slater sleepwalks through this dreck. The direction, editing, sound (do we really need a heavy-metal video in the middle of a gunfight?), costumes (bulletproof vests with muscles on them), and hey, there's no discernible plot either. It amazes me that no one attached to the project stopped and said, "hey guys, this just doesn't make any sense, let's start over". Hopefully Slater's career can rebound from this disaster.

Hands down the worst film I've ever seen.

The minute the forward started, I knew we were in for trouble! The premise is laughable at best. The story line was even worse, if that is possible.

The acting was stiff and the actors gave off a sense of inexperience. You expect more from the likes of Slater, Reid and Dorff. Lines were delivered as if from a robot. And I'm sorry, I like Reid but she was VERY unbelievable as an archaeologist. Slater and Dorff picked a lousy film to try and stage their comebacks.

The continuity was off through out the entire film. The creatures weren't bad, but they really weren't good either.

Bottom line, I want that ninety minutes of my life back. They can keep the money, but give me the time! What a waste.