It being an adaptation does it more harm than good

Rating: 6/10 (9 March 2010)

I love the games, having played the four of them that were out when this hit cinemas; however, I am not a blind follower of them who can't handle alterations made to the source material. What I have to wonder is why they bothered using so many key elements of the original when they were changing it all so drastically. Think about it; let's say I buy a shirt. A well-made one, a "name" one. I go home, proceed to cut it up, and then I sew it into a hat. No, the result won't necessarily be unusable as head-wear; but that does nothing about the fact that it is, indeed, a strange way of getting to that point. Why not simply purchase fabric and start from scratch? While I won't deny that it bothered me that they went in such a different direction, what really stands out to me as bad is how they refused to throw away the shackles that using a lot of the same stuff as the 1999 VG(and some from the others) was; I suppose they really prefer "you messed up ***!" to "where was ***?". Yes, this has people, music, locations, angles and monsters that we can recognize, as well as a tad of cheap fan-service. Also, credit where it is due, this definitely *looks* extraordinary. The production values are nothing short of stunning, with areas, costumes, and FX(save for a little of the CGI) that are amazing and leave nothing to be desired. The cinematography and editing are marvelous. This manages to build a pretty good atmosphere, and it can be disturbing, if nowhere near on the level of the rest of the franchise(I find it hard to believe that this was meant to be as chilling as the story or the whole of any of them... the first of which(that this is meant to be a version of), I might add, could easily have survived a direct translation). There are a few scares that are loud and don't fit with the rest, and a handful of downright goofy instances. I'm all for equality, though the gender switch of the lead seems like misplaced tokenism(the already there strong female wasn't even removed; I'm referring, of course, to Cybil, who, by the way, looks like she walked straight out of the sexual fantasy of a guy into leather), and it wound up being an example of them shooting themselves in the foot... feet... whatever. The husband scenes break the delicately established mood, and not only *could* they be taken out(with literally no negative impact), they *should*, it would improve the overall picture. They take away from the sense of isolation... and so does other things. The acting varies, if the main cast do well, and the kid is phenomenal. Dialog ranges, a bit is forced and poor. The script doesn't completely hold up, it bears the marks of their being unwilling to fiddle with the structure too much; think of it as trying to invent chess, using checkers as the basis. No, really, the plot they had isn't the worst; it's dragged down by them writing it around what was put in place around one not like theirs. This did not have a fraction of the emotional resonance with me that the interactive Silent Hill's did. The rest of what's wrong with this is all linked to it essentially being a Hollywood flick; there's gratuitous eye-candy(seriously, half the women in this are hot chicks), the characters are entirely black and white, everything is tied(closely, at that) to the core conflict(do they not realize that background and details that flesh out the world are a positive? Must popular movies be dominated by this fear of the audience not being able to handle that?), and, showing a true lack of understanding of the effect of mystery and the viewers' own imaginations, barely a single incident in this remains unexplained(and for the vast majority of them, we are talking the straight, "sit down, this omniscient voice is now going to tell you, with no trace of ambiguity, what has happened, including the parts you've seen", not giving us the benefit of the doubt that maybe we could piece it together ourselves, perhaps we'd actually enjoy *thinking* about what we've watched). There is plenty of bloody, gory violence, infrequent swearing and brief references to sexuality in this. The DVD comes with a feature length documentary that I will review on its individual page here on the site, a theatrical trailer, TV spots and a photo gallery. For what it's worth, I don't consider director Gans untalented; quite the opposite(I'll consider checking out other of his films), he did the best he could with what he had to work with, that being what Avary put together. Heck, it may not have been his fault, either, with the other pieces he's done... well, whose choice was it? Who thought that it would be better to dis-, and then re-assemble, instead of just going somewhere new? I recommend this to those who like supernatural horror(not to be confused with psychological terror, like the rest of the series). As is nearly always the case, those who like what this was an adaptation of will be disappointed. 6/10