
Good movie hurt by an overzealous script
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.
I am a gamer who has played through the first 3 Silent Hill games that concern the visuals and plot within this moive. With that in mind, I can say that only the part where Rose (Radha Mitchell) first enters the town and chases the girl into the alleyway is exactly true to the first game. When I recognized the alleyway (from the same exact camera angles as in the game, bravo!) and knew that "the darkness" was coming, I literally got the same chills when I heard that air siren sound as when I first played the game! Unfourtunatley, this was the only clearly recognizable scene from the games, as the whole rest of the moive is a sloppy mismash of areas, monsters and plots from mostly the first and third games (note: the first is the beginning of the true mythology and the third is the direct sequel to that story, NOT the second game!). Most core elements of the first game's plot are used but some are reversed. For instance in the first game Dahlia is the villian, having knowingly burned her child Alessa and then forcibly possessing her with the soul of a powerful demon. In the movie that is totally changed as Dahlia is portrayed as a victim of the cult group that burned the girls. This cult, led by the fanatic Claudia, is part of the third game's plot which concerns the then teenage Alessa (real name is Cheryl being the same girl as in the first game) This strange hybrid of plots from two games really destroys any comprehension for the non-gamer and is a real letdown for the gamers who hoped to see the original plot transformed into a movie. The only bonus from this style is that music form all three games was used for the soundtrack (VERY cool!) and the cool monsters form the second game, like the spitting thing and Pyramid Head, are included, which if they had directly followed the first game couldn't have been there. I still think for the sake of a intelligent, coherent plot (which is a big part of what makes the games so interesting) that this "experimental" style of scripting should have given way to either a direct version of the first game or at least a condensed version of the entire plot from games one and three. I understand that the crew must have been stoked that Konami let them have such free liscense with all the various plots and monsters, but trying to use every plot and every monster from three games in one approx 2 hour moive can only lead to the result we got here: confusion. The graphics of the alternate reality were AWESOME, so I know they had the technical ability to take on any of the scences from the complete plots of the first or third game, and so could have really made the game into a big screen movie w/o compromising any details. As for some of the scripted diolague, I agree some of it was stilted at times, but I blame that mainly on the person who wrote this cut and paste script, NOT the actors. Anyone who has seen Pitch Black and the first two Lord of the Rings movies knows that Radha Mitchell and Sean Bean are great actors, capable of any role handed to them. One other thing that was true to the games was the use of sudden, viscreal violence and realistic gore instead of constant blood and guts. The bloody action has the effect it is meant to, to startle and disturb rather than to try and just gross us out. So overall, top marks for the corect use of violence and surreal imagery and for the actors who were victims of a poor script, and for the use of almost 100% game music for the soundtrack!
Review ID: 10000000002488699

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