Atmospheric, but too long

Rating: 7/10 (23 April 2006)

(Forgive me if you find another review here by yours truly of this film. I wrote one but now cannot locate it.) SILENT HILL is a very faithful adaptation of a popular video game, according to my 19-year-old daughter. As a movie, it is certainly atmospheric and spooky, although it lacks any real scares, the gore is subdued, and the plot is all over the place. And it comes to an incredibly ludicrous climax. Radha Mitchell searches for her missing daughter in the abandoned W. Va. coal mining town of Silent Hill, only to cross over into an alternate dimension where she encounters a veritable army of creepy crawlies and assorted and sundry monsters. She finds allies in the form of a motorcycle cop (Laurie Holden) and a bag lady (Deb Unger) who also has lost her kid years before. All is made plain by film's end, perhaps too much so. Too much explanation tends to spoil the broth, Mr. Gans. Sean Bean plays the distraught husband searching for his wife and daughter. Mitchell and Bean are competent, nothing more. B movie queen Alice Krige as the head of a satanic cult plays it way over the top. A lot of the dialog is simply laughable, especially toward the end, and the film is too long by half. This is not the second coming of THE RING or THE OTHERS, but if nothing else SILENT HILL looks terrific. The set design alone should be an Oscar contender.