Convoluted and Disappointing

Rating: 1/10 (23 April 2006)

I don't know how anyone can write a spoiler for this film since it didn't make any sense. But I thought I would check the box anyway in case I inadvertently gave something away.
Although I have not played the video game, I was somewhat familiar with the concept from watching my son play. My son I guess was expecting the movie to be similar to Resident Evil or Doom. I was hoping it would have at least a good scare or two. Both of us walked out of the theater going WTF?!?! While there were tons of disturbing images, none of them were inherently frightening, just weird. In fact the legion of zombie-nurse-creature-things, with their micro mini's and push up bras looked like they were leftover from Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video. I was literally expecting them to start dancing at one point.
The plot vanished about ten minutes into the film...as soon as they walked into Silent Hill. The abandoned town was creepy enough, but nothing happened there, which was disappointing. It appeared that all the action took place in a dream state? I just don't know though... I had to keep asking my son what was going on and he had no clue either. He kept complaining about all the creatures from the game that were missing from the movie. Maybe it was edited poorly, and they left out all the key elements? It did seem that quite a bit of dialogue was placed in an attempt to explain what was happening, but it missed the mark.
The imagery and concept reminds me slightly of an older sci-fi horror flick "Event Horizon", which I didn't like either. So I guess if you enjoyed that, this one will be right up your alley. Me, as soon as I got home, I got on the net trying to find a synopsis or plot outline so that I could at least say to myself "Oh, is that what they meant?!" Poor Radha Mitchell, "Pitch Black" was just awesome, what was she thinking on this one....