Great Adaptation - Mediocre Movie

Rating: 6/10 (4 May 2006)

I like video games, and I like movies. I've never played a Silent Hill game all the way through, and I've only gotten a chance to play 3-4 hours of Silent Hill 2 (or maybe it was 3, I can't remember) and a little bit of Silent Hill 4.
That being said, from my limited experience with Silent Hill I thought this was a great game adaptation, but a mediocre film. Just like the video game the movie had a confusing story and cheesy acting. Also, just like the video game, the movie was visually beautiful, and had some parts that were 'scary' (I put scary in quotes, because I thought there were a few things that were creepy/had me on the edge of my seat, but for the most part I thought it was just weird. The girl I took to see it, though, thought it was VERY scary, so it's really just a matter of what you think is scary.)
I was really looking forward to this film, and was both disappointed and pleased after seeing it. On the one hand, I was glad they did such a good job turning the game into a film. On the other hand, as a movie, it just wasn't very good.
I can't recommend this movie to everyone. If you want to see a horror flick, this is probably a pretty good choice. If you are a fan of the video games I'd recommend it. If you want to see a good movie, this probably isn't for you. If you're a HUGE fan of the video games and know every in and out of the story and the characters, seeing it may just anger you.
This is probably one of the, if not the, best video game to movie adaptation I have seen yet (I thought Doom did a pretty good job as well) If you look at it as a movie by itself, without it's video game heritage, its visually very appealing, but can't stand up on its own.