Like watching somebody else playing the game...

Rating: Null/10 (19 April 2007)

By definition, any film version of a PC game that sticks as close to the plot of the game as this film appears to do is going to lose the vicarious thrill a player enjoys when playing the game. Watching this film has to be pretty much like sitting next to somebody you don't know while they play the game. The impressive visuals of the ghost town wrapped in a haze of white ash from the fires that have burned beneath it for thirty years can only keep you interested for so long and, once the action goes underground, the interminable succession of shots of plucky mum Radha Mitchell running down dark corridors away from vaguely defined phantoms as she searches for her daughter quickly grows boring. Character development is non-existent  which, again, is OK with a game because you are the hero, but is a death knell to any film  and, as he did in The Dark, Sean Bean once again plays the most pointless of characters. Completely passive, adding nothing to the plot, and serving only to offer an occasional change of scene from the dim alleyways of Silent Hill, he is totally redundant. The guy must really be desperate to crack the US market to accept a role like this. I don't remember Bean and Mitchell, who play husband and wife, sharing a single scene, so you can imagine the chemistry there: Bean could probably pass Mitchell in the street without knowing who she is.