Silent Hill, the first video game to be adapted to a movie

Rating: 8/10 (30 June 2006)

OK, lots of you will surely protest against my statement. Of course there were other movies which were adapted from video games, but as long as I (a video gamer) concerns, all of them only shared the title with their respective so-called adapted video games. I don't even know where to begin with. Super Mario Brothers (what the hell?). Street Fighter (seriously, guys!). Resident Evil (even Dawn of the Dead felt more like the game than that Milla Jovovich movie). Tomb Raider (pretty decent, but NAH!). Doom (Ow guys come on! They only adapted the 3 minutes first person scene). I might have missed the others, but I just can't stand them anymore.
Anyway, let's get back to Silent Hill.
Why this movie is 'video game' to me? It is simply because the filmmakers were faithful to the visual style, the look, the feel and the plot of the game. For those who haven't played the game, Silent Hill games put you in the role of characters who are lost in the town called Silent Hill. Each Silent Hill game has its own character and plot/mission. Therefore if the plot in the movie doesn't have anything to do with the games, it is because that it is kind of 'another tale' of Silent Hill, although the movie version has a lot of similarities with the first Silent Hill game.
Anyone who had played the games would soon recognized that the strange creatures are very much alike the ones in the games. The filmmakers also made a very good compilation of the creatures from the video game series to be featured in the movie. Those creatures did a great job in the movies to be very freakish and out of this world, just like in the games.
Another thing is that the filmmakers implemented some element of the gameplay in the movie and its story. Without giving out anything, there is one point when the main character has to memorize a map in order to reach a specific place. That part surprised me so much; it is because that in the game you actually have to do exactly the same thing as well. There were moments when I played the game that I had to check the map, paused for a bit to memorize it (sometimes I drew myself a simple map), and then returned to control my character. Also, for those of you who had played the game, you'd know that Silent Hill is about finding out clues and sometimes items in order to reach the main goal. And that was also implemented by Christophe Gans and Roger Avary. The main character in the movie had to read some old newspaper articles, asked other characters, and finding things. I think those game play implementation was pretty well done, although there can be more.
Bottom line is, it is quite obvious that Christophe Gans and Roger Avary are huge fans of the game that they pour all their skills to faithfully adapt the game. However, this caused that only Silent Hill players would likely to enjoy the movie fully. I heard some of other viewers who never played the game that they did not really like the film and it was a bit too confusing to them.
Nevertheless, I give four thumbs up to the filmmakers. One thumb is for making such a great adaptation. One thumb is for implementing the game play. One thumb is for respecting video gamers. One thumb is for having the Pyramid Head.