Excellent premise....

Rating: 3/10 (23 February 2006)

...for a video game! I joined IMDb for the sole purpose of writing a review for this movie. I don't even care if anyone reads it, I just absolutely had to vent. I watched this movie with average expectations, knowing and having heard little about the film. Let me be the first to say that this movie should never, ever have been made. And then they should never, ever have made a sequel (but that's a story for another day). I won't give anything away here, because there's pretty much nothing to say about the movie that hasn't already been covered in the summary... in a way that makes way more sense, I promise. Meanwhile, this movie is just like the video game. Literally. I felt like I was playing a first-person shooter the whole time. The kind with a lot of unnecessary segues and animation, but no real action. But without the fun of doing it myself. (More accurately, I guess I felt like I was watching someone else play a first-person shooter.) The concept of the plot itself is just really, really dumb. Usually you can make up for something like that with good action or awesome fight scenes. Not so here. The action felt forced and was extremely predictable. Loud sound effects and a soundtrack with lots of power chords never make up for a lack of substance, and didn't here. Milla Jovovich's talent is completely wasted in this film. She's too good to be doing stuff like this. Really. And regarding Michelle Rodriguez... well, I've seen better acting skills in my 14-year-old sister's school plays. She has only two facial expressions: angry, and really angry. I only gave this movie a 3 out of 10 because I've seen The Hulk.