Talk about "Alone in the Dark" here:
Review by: Frank Willett
Plot Summary
Edward Carnby (Christian Slater), a paranormal investigator, is looking for answers to questions raised from a traumatic event that he and 19 other orphan children experienced twenty years earlier. This event has caused Carnby to lose some of his memory and has driven him to protect humans from "things that thrive in the darkness." Carnby used to work for the government's paranormal research agency, Bureau 713, established to uncover the secrets of a lost civilization, the Abkani. The Abkani mysteriously disappeared 10,000 years ago after letting evil creatures into our world by opening gates to the world of darkness. The Abkani have hidden all over the world artifacts that hold clues to their dark secrets. Carnby with the help of his girlfriend, Aline Cedrac (Tara Reid), is gathering and interpreting these artifacts in order to find the answer to his questions. Lionel Hudgens, an archeologist, is also looking for the Abkani artifacts to discover the Abkani's secrets. Hudgens started his research of the Abkani twenty years earlier, while working for Bureau 713. Through experiments that resulted in Carnby's traumatic event, Hudgins has discovered how to control some of the creatures and is now using them and the grown-up orphaned children to finish his evil research.
Review
This 2005 movie was based on a popular PC Game of the same name that debuted in 1992. The game was inspired by stories by H.P. Lovecraft and spawned four sequels. The intent of the movie was to pick up where the game left off. Other intentions this movie should have had were: finalize the plot, remain consistent with identified plot, better develop the motives of the characters, and strive to be more original. From beginning to end, nothing in this movie flows. The movie starts with a narrative text roll-up to get the audience up to speed. In short order, however, this is abandoned for a voice over by Christian Slater's character, Carnby. While still trying to understand why Slater didn't also provide the information of the text roll-up in the voice-over, the wave after wave assault of disjointed scenes on the human senses begins. It starts with a high action bad-guy chase scene that contains unnecessary martial arts wire work action and a still photography bullet time sequence. It ends with scenes of an unexplained evacuated city and a suggested daylight attack of the creatures on Carnby and Cedrac. Somewhere in the middle, there is a gratuitous make-out (in no way can you call this sex) scene performed by Slater and Reid that turns out to be a reflection of the abruptness of the rest of this film.
Items worth noting: The DVD contains interesting trivia captioning that can be played as you watch the movie. H.P. Lovecraft has inspired other movies such as Re-Animator, Resurrected and From Beyond. The soundtrack, although at times unrelated to the movie, is pretty good.
Conclusion
This film (rated R--most likely for language) is better left to be watched with friends when a movie that can be easily ripped on for fun is needed. Its confusion of plot, characters, action, and poor dialog leaves the movie ripe with opportunities to pan. Close to the end, a bond with Tara Reid's character might occur with the realization that the utter look of confusion on her face is the same one you've experienced for the last hour and twenty-eight minutes.
