a flat, disappointing movie.

Rating: 2/10 (29 September 2009)

Christophe Gans is a known amateur of B-series movies, and his previous creations (Crying Freeman, Brotherhood of the Wolf) were very talented entertainment movies.
Crying Freeman was a mix of romance and traditional yakuza story, while Brotherhood of the Wolf was a film "de capes et d'epees". Both movies were characterized by their suspense and the quality of the production.
Silent Hill is far from that. Unfortunately, this big production is very linear and its scenario is paper-thin. Too thin, in fact, to justify the duration of this movie, and the viewer will often feel that scenes are too long or even unnecessary (especially when explicit violence is depicted -burning people, etc- ) .
This film fully relies on an all-you-can-eat bulimia of special effects. Another constant is the use of deep shadows to create anxiety, as the spectator can only see monster in the light beam of the heroin. This technique was previously seen in numerous movies, Alien and Seven among many many others.
I have read comments about this movie being smarter than a typical gore movie, and being more profound than a simple video-game adaptation. Unfortunately, this is simply not true.