Alone in the Dark2 movie review

Alone in the Dark 2

Welcome back! I thought I’d be waiting until the Tekken movie came out to be starting vol.2 of my video game movie review series but alas the internet gods have smiled upon me and led me to a copy of Alone in the Dark 2. Now for those of you who have read my reviews before thank you and welcome back. For those of you who are new each review follows a simple format. Introduction, quick plot summary, review, the how I would do it section where I describe briefly how I would change the movie to make it better and finally the ratings which are broken down into the following categories
• Overall. My overall score for the movie out of 10
• Acting. How well the actors did their job including if they matched the characters persona from the game.
• Plot. How much the plot of the movie resembles a plot from the game(s)
• Content. How much stuff from the game is in the movie including weapons, characters, outfits and other familiar things from the game.

This will be the only review with this long of an introduction if you’re curious and want to read my other reviews you can search through the blogs here or go to my site http://vidgamemoviereview.blogspot.com/ so with that shameful plug out of the way let’s get on to the review.

Well I said that Far Cry was the last Uwe Boll movie so by now your probably shouting liar as loud as you can at your computer screen while your mother/ neighbor yells at you to shut up. Well to you I say hold your god damn horses this movie was only produced by Boll it was written and directed by two other schmucks. Will that coupled with a whole new cast help the sequel surpass its predecessor read on to find out.

Alone in the Dark 2 follows the main character from the games and previous film Edward Carnby as he helps a group of people hunt and kill an evil witch. Along the way Edward gets infected with a witch’s curse and has to find out how to break the spell before him and his friends are all killed.

Ok so for this review since the movie has so very little to do with the game we are going to play how does it compare? Where we compare the sequel to the original movie and see how it stacks up. So to get it out of the way the only thing from the game in this movie is Edward and the fact that the plot focuses on paranormal activity.

This brings us to our first comparison. Whereas Boll’s movie had multiple characters, monsters and plot elements from the game the sequel had only the main character. And they even cast him incorrectly as in the games and first movie Edward is a white guy in the sequel they hired an Asian actor.

Now I have no problem with changing the race of a character like when they made kingpin black in the daredevil movie but to change the race in between movies is crazy. Also the sequel seems to completely disregard the events of the first one. At the end of the first one New York had been completely overrun with the monsters and everyone was either eaten or evacuated but at the start of this movie everyone’s walking around happy go lucky not a care in the world.

Now let’s discuss the action. In the first movie there was a few wire fight moves and one bullet time scene the rest was generic shootouts and explosions witch made for a generic but entertaining movie. The sequel however as far as action is concerned consists of shouting and firing tracer rounds at a mist where the bullets do nothing and believe it or not is pretty boring.

How about monsters surely a witch with supernatural powers was cooler then a bunch of lizard like monsters and Spiderman like zombies. Well you would be wrong. In the first movie there was two enemy types the first where super strong and agile humans infected with some sort of spinal symbiote the second where giant black lizard type things that ate everything in its path silly as they may be at least you knew what they where and what hurt them in the context of the movie.

In the sequel they constantly refer to the one monster that there is as a witch. But the monster itself acts more like a ghost as most of the time it appears as mist and can also posses people. And as far as hurting it the humans shoot at it the whole movie and that does nothing there is one point where they turn on UV lights witch does nothing but confuse me as I’ve never heard of ultra violet hurting ghosts or witches.

So monsters action and plot all three are better in Boll’s movie but the writing has to be better right? I mean Boll is an idiot who knows nothing of video games. Unfortunately you’re wrong again. A lot of people complain about the long text intro in the first one but at least it gives you info about the monsters that make the movie a little easier to follow. In the sequel they don’t really explain anything.

The dialog is about the same for both but for as many plot holes that are in the first one the second one has twice as many. There is a scene in the second one where Edward is infected with a curse and the stereotypical large muscle bound shoot first guy is watching over him one second and the next just so the movie can show us a useless scene he’s gone and conveniently left behind his shotgun. Then as Edward heads downstairs the afore mentioned muscle head is suddenly not on the porch.

And finally the acting well I’ve never seen the problem with Christian Slater so besides the writing I thought the acting in the first movie was bearable. In this movie we have 3 decent actors 2 of which die. The first is Rick Yune who has been in the fast and the furious, a bond villain in die another day, an assassin in a straight to DVD action flick and will be the main character in the upcoming epic ninja assassin.

The second is Danny Trejo who was in both Desperado and once upon a time in Mexico and plenty of other movies as supporting and main cast. And the third is Zach Ward who is mainly known for his role on the sitcom Titus but has also been in 2 other Boll movies.

All three of these actors have shown great acting ability and unfortunately the writing simply does not allow them to show off. They have Edward played by Rick Yune as a street wise tuff guy and it’s just silly. Zach Ward plays a drug hustler who is infected with the witch’s curse and frankly has the best lines. And Danny Trejo has like two lines then is killed which is a waste.

Lance Henriksen is also in the movie and you may be surprised but if you browse the new release wall as much as I do you can see how many straight to DVD b-sci-fi and horror movies he’s been in.

How would I do it? Well frankly I wouldn’t have made a sequel but if I had to I would have picked up with the plot from the first one and explained what happened to the monsters and everyone else.

Well that about wraps it up overall this movie is a piece of crap that I think even
Uwe Boll should be ashamed to have his name attached to and just goes to show you that there is something worse than having Boll make a video game movie.

Overall I give the movie 2 out of 10 Asian Carnbys. There is almost nothing enjoyable about this movie and honestly not even worth watching for free.

The acting gets 3 out of 10. With 3 decent actors on the cast they could have had so much more but they were written very badly.

The plot gets 2 out of 10. Besides it being about paranormal activity there is nothing to link it to a game.

The content gets 1 out of 10. Only thing from the game was Edward and a flash light.

Ok well that does it for the first entry in Vol.2 of my review series. I’m still eagerly awaiting Tekken and recently I saw some production Photos from the Prince of Persia movie and it looks promising.