A waste

Rating: 2/10 (23 December 2006)

Maybe this movie means something to fans of the video game, but having literally no experience with (or knowledge of) the latter, I found it immensely tedious. Much of the dialog is sloppy or hackneyed, and the first several plot points are so contrived it's almost embarrassing -- a lot like a very bad sit-com. Further in, it's clear the goal is to seem otherworldly & artsy, but that failed, and I had the recurrent urge to fast-forward. Now I wish I'd given in to it.
The child actor's long lecture about 3/4 of the way through is clumsy, ponderous, borderline laughable, and even recited poorly. Virtually all of the interior or underground shots are needlessly under-lit, and most of the special effects are cheap and pointless, even if a few might have merit for being startling in their grotesqueness.