It works for itself.

Rating: 8/10 (24 March 2010)

In the DVD features Christophe states the essential truth about adapting a work from a different media. You can mess the characters and the setting but you shall not mess the theme.
The theme is something that goes completely ignored more times than not, and it carries the difference between a great adaptation or a unwatchable work.
The theme to Silent Hill (Just the Alessa arc) is about parent and child love. And just how religion can transform people into monsters. The movie gets this right while visually keeping the cue from the video game. It develops in a story of it's own. There will be purists who will not enjoy the film, since it cannot recreate the long hours of playing and the feeling of being in control. Buyt it is just different media and the only thing that has to be really carried over is the theme and the spirit.
In a sub genre full of bad flicks. Silent Hill may be the best out there. That does not speaks great of the film, but means something, the production team understood what could be done and as a result even with the most different setting this movie shares more spirit with it's original material than the LOTR movies for example.
A worth rental at the very least. and for people who know nothing of Silent Hill perhaps a good chance to get into one of the most rich and narratologically complex videogames ever.