Silent Turd-spoilers

Rating: Null/10 (7 May 2006)

*Spoilers*
The only reason I give this film one star is for production value, and for the good acting efforts from everyone who played the Silent Hill religious fanatics. All the other actors were abysmal.
I was really looking forward to this-- I was a bit wary because it was based on a video game, but hey, I'm an eternal optimist. Sadly, it was a total piece of garbage and can best be summed up by the following equation:
Bad Writing + Bad Directing + Bad Acting = Two hours of Silent Crap.
The acting was literally painful to watch, the story made zero sense until about halfway through the film, and the subplot of the father was just boring and unnecessary. How did a wonderful actor like Sean Bean end up in this stinker? Did he need the money that badly?
I know I keep banging on about the acting, and normally I'm pretty forgiving of actors. But it's like the casting director had his eyes shut or something during auditions-- the mother is AWFUL, the kid stinks except for that one excerpt they showed on Conan, when she plays evil Alyssa, and the cop's performance is just goofy. I think Laurie Holden, the actress playing the cop, tried her best, but she couldn't do much with such shite dialogue-- seriously, it's really that bad.
It's not like the actors ever have a chance though-- the writing and directing fails them completely. The script is so out-of-touch that it lost both me and my friend in the first five minutes, and we have completely different taste in films. But you just don't care about the characters, or the choices they make. As mom and kid are speeding along to Silent Hill in only the first five minutes, you're like, BFD-- who cares?
The film is also full of could-be-cool-but-just-aren't moments, which build you up with hope then fall completely flat, for example, the mutated humanoid figures gimping around all over the place-- okay, fine, after the fourth time, you've seen it, it doesn't make any sense, and you just don't care. When that silly thing came out of the bathroom stall, I was already yawning coz 1) I didn't care if the mom bought the farm and 2) it was predictable and hackneyed. Notice the trend with not caring? And trust me, I tried.
That whole scene with the scarabs is lifted right out of the mummy-- and the scene with the zombie demon nurses wants to be cool, but you just keep expecting them to break out into a Janet Jackson-style Rhythm Nation dance. See it and you'll see what I mean-- their body language makes them look like refugees from a bad but slick-looking remake of Thriller.
So there's really not much to redeem this crummy film. I went to see it coz the previews made it look interesting-- but it's just another case of the marketing dept. being the most talented, them and the VFX and title sequence guys. Even post-production magic can't polish this turd-- the movie is laughable, logic-free, and not even remotely good enough to enjoy status as a guilty pleasure.