Another shallow big budget flick churned out by a computer.

Rating: 3/10 (26 May 2006)

As a lover of grim, violent, and surreal horror (as opposed to lame "teenagers chased by slasher" type flicks), as well as liking the previous work of both the director and writer, I was really looking forward to this movie. I thought the trailer looked cheap and cheesy, but a lot of them do these days, even for great movies, so I didn't pay any heed. I should have, the movie was just like the trailer, cept for a few cool parts. The biggest problems for me were: Awful dialog, badly acted by annoying, shallow cardboard characters that I knew nothing about, and therefore cared nothing about. I can't believe Roger Avary wrote this.... And the plot, or at least the resolution of it, was just stupid and convoluted. It seemed like they needed an excuse for all the weirdness that had gone on, so they threw something really ridiculous together in the last 20 minutes. It didn't unfold naturally or believably (at least, as believable as a situation like this can). I know, they got some of this stuff from the games, but I haven't played the games, and I shouldn't have to to enjoy this. If anything, this seemed too much like one of these types of games; aimless wandering from scene to scene, finding clues, unrealistic "conversations" with random characters intended to advance you throughout the game.
I thought this was going to be creepy and gory, but there was about 20 total minutes out of 2 hours that I'd call that. Maybe if all the backgrounds and gore hadn't been badly computer animated, and if there hadn't been 2 minutes of cool and creepy then 20 minutes of walking around, i would have liked it more. I'm really getting tired of the cgi gore in horror films, it's not necessary, and not once has it made a movie better for me, usually the opposite. Doesn't seem to cost less either..... bring back the latex and corn syrup with red#40..... this movie was just more lame, fake, shiny Hollywood crap..... I like shiny Hollywood stuff sometimes (hell, I liked "The Ring"), but not here.