Alone in the Dark

Alone in the Dark (Director: Uwe Boll) Release date: January 28

Ahhh...Uwe Boll, fine director of House of the Dead, a movie I included in my Worst of 2003 list. This German director made a few movies before it and I suppose on the strength of those movies, Hollywood producers said, "If we've got a video game license, hand it over to Uwe Boll. After House of the Dead and this picture, he's got the adaptation of Bloodrayne slated for a November 17 release.

Alone in the Dark is a how-not-to in moviemaking. From the opening scenes alone my brain already shut down in an attempt to make a note of things that were wrong already. I will make mention of a few things, like scenes that don't matter. The narration. The incomprehensible story.

The movie begins with a scroll of words, telling us about the race of creatures called Abskani, and how that race disappeared, and how this evil scientist (Matthew Walker) wanted to combine them with humans and make some sort of super-race. He has taken twenty children from an orphanage in order to do so, because hey, no one gives a fuck about orphans. Kind of like Extreme Measures when Gene Hackman does his nerve research on homeless people. These people won't be missed!

One of the children, named Edward Carnby, escapes after his creature-splice surgery, and something happens that supposed to be a big mystery, and the missing child turns into paranormal investigator Christian Slater, the type of guy who jumps into a cab and thoughtfully pulls out a long-lost artifact, so that he can see it, and the audience can see it. I suppose he had to make sure it was there, or he just missed looking at it. Another, evil cabbie is giving chase, and it was then, I'm sure, all 5 people who have watched this movie thought, "I wonder why this taxi is pursuing Christian Slater's taxi? Surely it's not the long-lost artifact he pulled out of his bag?" Well, obviously, the man driving the evil taxi is one of those guys who's invincible, and Slater has a hard time killing the guy, except when there's a convenient fire poker sticking up to throw him on.

My first major gripe is how the movie is edited. After Slater steals an entrance pass from Stephen Dorff, he goes to the government agency called 713 (an agency Slater was once a part of) to visit with this doctor who is performing an autopsy on the guy Slater killed. They find an otherworldly spine in the guy's back. Slater's character has amnesia, and apparently has no recollection of his childhood, so I don't know why in the next scene the doctor is X-raying Slater to see if he has the same spine (he does, and the creature was killed by electricity it seems, when as a child he escaped and fled to a power generator or something). Way after the next time we see him, Dorff scolds the doctor for talking to Slater, which has no importance at all since the doctor is essentially out of the loop after that (something happens to him--also pointless). Also, near the end, one unimportant character is bitching to another unimportant character about getting the floodlights to work, so they can see in the jungle where a bunch of these creatures are about to attack. Once the lights come on, there is nothing revealed by them, no suspense begins, there's not even a hint that the movie wants you to think that the lights are important in any way. It's a throwaway scene, could have been cut out completely, and no one would have missed it.

We also follow two inessential characters through a boring hunt of the creatures, with hardly any sense of dread, but they're going to die, that's for sure. This isn't Aliens, where we have tracking devices and little clues that signal to the viewer, oh crap, don't go there. This is Alone in the Dark, where nothing suggests danger until one of the guys, trying to find his teammate, discovers his teammate's head split into odd halves that are still attached to her neck.

Oh yeah, this movie also breaks the rule about narration, where it's required to fill in the gaps of the story. After another long-lost artifact, a trunk, is opened, lots of people die and the 19 kids (now grown up) who were stolen from the orphanage are awakened by a higher power. Then there's narration discussing why. The story is stupid anyway, filled with so many non-essential things (I mean, the whole thing with the orphans is rendered entirely moot once you see some of the events in this film), you can't simply put your brain on the armrest and watch the movie giddily. It's so dumb as to be cerebral, because your brain can't figure out why this was made, in the way it was made. It's a smattering of ideas that don't go together, like broccoli and cereal. All of these little ideas only serve to make the picture an action film at the convenient moments. If the movie was nothing but dispensible guys killing these creatures, all-out warfare, this movie would have been worthwhile. Uwe Boll isn't the best action-stager in the world (he's certainly one of the worst), but all the plot threads and ridiculous scenes could have been excised--just use Slater's long-lost artifact, open the door with all the creatures behind it, mix in guns, and enjoy.

Oh yeah, Tara Reid's in this. Good for her. An early candidate for Worst of the Year. Can Uwe Boll make the list twice in one year? Can't wait for Bloodrayne.