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Movie Review - Alone in the Dark (2005)
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(What this rating means)
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| Director: |
Uwe Boll |
| Starring: |
Christian Slater, Tara Reid, and Stephen Dorff |
| Rated: |
R (for violence and language) |
| Length: |
96 minutes |
| Genre: |
Horror/Bad Movie |
| Tagline: |
Evil awakens. |
| Studio: |
Lions Gate Films |
| Website: |
Alone in the Dark |
| Release: |
January 28, 2005 |
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PLOT
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It has something to do with Edward Carnby (Slater), a paranormal detective who hunts and tracks down the strange
and unusual, teaming up with Tara Reid, a museum curator/archaeologist and his nemesis Stephen Dorff to fight
the powers of evil. A gateway to Hell has been opened, or something, and it needs to be shut. Uwe Boll's
despoilment of yet another video game series ensues.
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JOHNNY'S TAKE
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Alone in the Dark is a disappointment, but it's in a way you might not expect. Some movies fail to live up
to the hype of their praise, but this is a rare breed of movie that fails to live up to the hype of its ridicule.
I wanted it to be so bad that it was good, but unfortunately, it doesn't even "succeed" on that level. It
has its moments, but rather than sustaining a constant stream of "entertainingly awful badness," it just starts
to drag and becomes a chore to finish sitting through. Folks, I've seen Troll 2, and Alone in
the Dark - you are no Troll 2.
I don't recommend paying money to see this (and thank goodness I didn't), so I'll be kind enough to point out
some of the highlights:
- The movie starts off with a 60-second scroll text. A narrator, who sounds a lot like David Carradine, reads
it to us. Feel free to read along! Since this is loosely based on a video game, one can only assume that Boll
wanted us to experience all the *COUGH* excitement *COUGH* of reading an instruction manual. Brilliant.
- At the beginning of the movie, Slater is sleeping on a plane and is having a dream about his past when he was
part of a group of 20 orphans who were used for some weird experiments 22 years ago. When he wakes up, a
bad kid actor barely manages to ask him if he had nightmares. Slater mumbles something about, "Yeah, I had
this dream that my agent let me accept a role in a Uwe Boll mov..." but before Slater can finish his sentence
the scene is cut. Very choppy editing if you ask me.
- Tara Reid is an assistant museum curator/archaeologist. You may have the tendency to read that sentence and
scoff, but please keep in mind that she wears glasses and puts her hair in a bun. We all know that automatically
equates to intelligence. Unfortunately, she fails to convince us of any sign of said intelligence as she spits out
every line with such a lack of emotion that you just know she had memorized it five seconds ago and was doing her
very best to say it without messing up. "Edward. It. is. so. good. to. see. you. again."
- A huge creature with inhuman strength chases Slater and Reid into a room at the museum. They close the
door and Slater yells at Tara to lock it. This creature just penetrated a dude's skull and is rampaging through
the museum, destroying everything it touches, but a locked door is gonna stop it?
- Welcome to the world of awkward, out-of-place make out scenes. Out of nowhere, Slater and Reid start rekindling
their old flame on a bed at the museum. Was that supposed to be an ancient artifact? King Tut's bed, perhaps? Or
does the museum just keep a bed with silk sheets handy?
- Don't you just love big fight scenes that consist of CGI creatures, loud heavy metal music, lots of darkness,
and a little gunfire flash? It's by design. You can't see or figure out what's going on, so I can only
assume that Boll lives by the "if you can't see it, then you can't judge it too harshly" philosophy.
- There's an agent in the movie named Pinkerton. Agent Pinkerton? Come on. They should've had a sheriff
named "Marshall Law."
- There weren't nearly as many cheesy lines as there should've been, but Slater did manage to reel off a
handful of stupid ones like, "Something tells me we're not the first ones down here," as he stares at an
obviously MAN-MADE wall. Well thank you, Master of the Bloody Obvious. Those human skulls adorning the walls
may have been a tip-off as well.
- Why in the world are the soldiers setting a timer on a bomb to explode in 8 seconds. 8 seconds? Ever heard
of giving yourself a few seconds to FLEE TO SAFETY?!?!?! Or was this a subtle, yet-oh-so-clever homage to
the 1994 Luke Perry/Stephen Baldwin Lane Frost biopic?
- There's no way you can keep from laughing at what is possibly the absolute worst song to play over ending
credits I've ever heard in a movie. Some band called Nightwish starts belting out, "I WISH I HAD AN ANGEL" and
Mr. Shade and I immediately started doing bad Dokken impersonations. I was spinning around, doing haymakers
with a fake guitar, and Mr. Shade was laying some heavy beats on his imaginary drum set. There IS entertainment
value to be found in songs that sound like they came straight out of the 1980s heavy metal genre; you just have
to look for it.
It's pretty sad when you're sitting in the theater thinking, "You know, this movie would've been far more
entertaining with Jean Claude Van Damme delivering bad one-liners in his broken English." What Boll should've
done is had Van Damme stare down one of the evil monstrosities, and as he removed a cigar from his mouth
he'd say, "Looks like you'll be alone... IN THE GRAVE!" Then he'd open fire and blow the demon-spawn back to the
brimstone from which it came. The line is cheesy, but it's what is needed if you want to make a bad movie like
this work.
"Some doors are meant to stay shut," Slater tells us. Yeah, and some movies are meant to stay unmade. Let's
hope it's a lesson that Mr. Boll soon learns.
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ODDS & ENDS
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- Budget: $20 to $30 million
- Made a paltry $2.5 million its opening weekend.
- "Alone in the dark" obviously describes what you'll be if you actually see this movie at the theater.
- For those of you who don't know, the Pinkertons were the first detective agency in the U.S. (established by
Allan Pinkerton in the mid-1800s). Was Agent Pinkerton's name chosen due to clever cuteness or just a lack of
creativity? In a movie like this, I have to side with a lack of creativity every time.
- Johnny Betts played Alone in the Dark 4 on Playstation and enjoyed it much more than the movie.
- Here's a choice quote from an actual "Open Letter" written by Uwe Boll himself: "Alone in the Dark is
finished and this movie is way above movies like Underworld or Resident Evil." Bwahahahahahaha.
Riiiiiiiiiiiight.
- Apparently, "Uwe" is German for "toilet."
- Let the words "An Uwe Boll Film" forever be a warning sign. Folks, the man has directed House of the
Dead and FOUR movies with Michael Paré. Need I say more?
- Christian Slater was in Bed of Roses with Josh Brolin who was in Hollow Man with Kevin Bacon.
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MAMA'S APPROVAL
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Lots of violence, and there are quite a few profanities (f-bombs, GDs, etc.). This one's not for mama
or the kids. To be honest, there's really no one I'd suggest recommending this to.
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TRAILER COMPARISON
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The trailer has a "the jury is still out" look about it. It makes the movie look like it could be
halfway decent in a brain-dead sort of way, but deep down inside you just have the feeling that it's
gonna blow chunks.
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THE GIST
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Alone in the Dark is a movie that isn't good, but it would've been a lot better off by being much
worse than it is. If you're gonna be bad, then embrace your craptitude and go forth with gusto. The only
way to enjoy this one is to see it for free with some friends and have a high tolerance for bad movies. Be
prepared to make your own jokes though because you'll need them to survive the long boring stretches where
the cheese isn't piled as high as you might want.
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