Alone in the Dark

2005
Starring
Christian Slater as Edward Carnby
Tara Reid as Aline Cedrac
Stephen Dorff as Commander Richards
Frank C. Turner as Fischer
Directed by Uwe Boll

Uwe Boll.

That’s pretty much all that needs to be said. Dr. Uwe Boll.

What can be said about this film that hasn’t already been said? Dr. Uwe Boll, the heir to the mantels of Ed Wood and Coleman Francis, returns again, armed with European funding, another video game franchise, and bad CGI. Dr. Uwe Boll cannot be stopped, there are at least four more video game movies from him headed down the pipeline. If there is one thing Dr. Uwe Boll is good at doing, it’s getting money from European guys. Now, he should put that talent to work in some area other than movies, because he has some sort of unnatural ability to get money despite the numerous evidence of him throwing said money into a gaping black hole of ruin never to be seen again. Dr. Uwe Boll will eventually deplete the entire economy of Europe and leave them all destitute and a starving Third World mess, while inflecting upon the rest of the world dozens of lackluster movies with random CGI and Matrix-shots that are all named after video games they have nothing in common with. So before Galaga the Movie is made featuring zombies or Dig Dug the Movie involving zombies, we must first strike a blow to the box office receipts and keep his features from reaching theaters, for the good of the world. This time, now, is the time that generations from now people will look back upon and judge us for how we stood against Dr. Uwe Boll. Will we stop him and his master plan, or will our descendants look back at us with hate and anger, in between starving to death and being forced to watch Zaxxon the Movie, featuring zombies? The power lays in your hands.

As for the movie itself, many of you may have played the actual game in the arcade or at Dave and Busters or Chuck E. Cheese. Forget what you saw in the game. Instead, we have Christian Slater as Edward Carnby, who is now some sort of archeologist looking for artifacts. They belonged to the now extinct Abanki people. The entire history of the Abanki and their disappearance is given during a long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long opening title crawl, which is also narrated because anyone who is watching this film is either unable to read the reviews, or assumed to be unable to read by the filmmakers. The narration also speaks of 713, some government agency for the supernatural, and about a gold mine and sleepers. Slater’s character is an orphan who was electrocuted as a child while many of his orphan friends had centipedes put in their backs by evil men. Slater today is taking a taxi ride home from the airport, as he has just acquired a new piece of some Abanki thing, and he is being followed by a man. Not just a normal man, this guy has superpowers of jumping and not dying when shot. He even lives through some ridiculous over the top “follow the bullet” sequence where a bullet goes through a block of ice and then hits the man in the chest, only to not kill him or slow him down. He starts beating up Slater, until Slater flips him onto a rod, piercing him an killing him.

Cut to Tara Reid, who is playing a Museum Curator. Wait, a MUSEUM CURATOR??? Is there anyone on the planet who thinks she can pull of playing anything with more than a single digit IQ? Well, there is one man, a young German director, and the horror he unleashed is now spread upon us all. Well, the *laugh* Museum Curator Tara Reid works for Dr. Hudgens, who is obsessed with the Abanki. Dr. Hudgens just found the “Air Rebus” or something similar, I am not watching the film again to find out the real name. The “Air Rebus” is evil and lets loose some evil things or other, which cause people to leave their homes and go for walks, and gives Slater a migraine. Such evil cannot be combated by any known weapon. As Slater is friends with one of the people who decided to go for a walk, he agrees to help try and find them. He goes to the orphanage he grew up in, as the people who all walked went there as well, and finds out their connection is the orphanage. He tells us he used to work for 713, the government supernatural agency, and talks to a friend from there, a poor man’s Q (from James Bond.)

Tara Reid the *laugh* Museum Curator is dating Slater, and they have a fight, but their acting is so bad I can’t tell if they are play fighting or still really fighting at the end. At the museum, the lights go out and a creature that looks very similar to the aliens from Aliens kills the security guard in a way very similar to the aliens from Aliens. More aliens run around and chase Our Heroes, but 713 agenst arrive and a fire fight breaks out. Tracer bullets zip around like flies over fresh cowpie on a hot day as the agents gun down the monsters. One specific agent is named Burke (Stephen Dorff) and he hates Slater. Slater goes to talk to his Q-like friend, whose name is Fischer. Fischer finds the centipede on the dead guy who is bullet immune from earlier, and finds a dead centipede in Slater as well. Back at the museum, Tara Reid goes back to work translating ancient Abanki artifacts, because we all believe her capable of such a feat. Dr. Hudgens returns to yell at her, but she is protected by 713 agent Cheung, played by Françoise Yip of Rumble in the Bronx and Black Mask fame. Fischer tells Slater that sunlight kills the monsters, which is why the guns are shooting tracer bullets, as they are shooting chemical lights or something. Slater then goes home and he and Tara Reid have one of the worst, most unerotic sex scenes ever put to celluloid. More people have fapped to Bumfights than will ever fap to this scene. Tara Reid doesn’t bother with simple things like nudity, either.

We go from horrible sex to the bad guys finding Fischer and taking him over because of voodoo magic or something. There is absolutely no reason for them to have any information as to why they should take out Fischer, but they do. Fischer wasn’t even at any of the firefights, so they couldn’t have followed him home. It’s just pointless garbage. Reid and Slater are at some cabin because they are looking for the birthplace of Abe Lincoln, and monsters attack. Unfortunately for the monsters, Tara Reid is an expert marksman, as well as Slater. The people who went for a walk earlier return as monsters as well, and become like zombies at one point. 713 agents show up as well for some shooting, and the whole scene becomes lit by only muzzle flashes and tracers, and is quick-spliced with thousands of 5 frame clips as a Rammstein -ripoff band plays to give it an MTV feel, except it feels more like TV Guide Channel. Françoise Yip is there as well, and so is Burke, who still hates Slater, but at least drags him to the abandoned gold mine where lots of monsters are now. Lots of 713 agents are there as well, and there is some sort of running gag involving a guy trying to set up the lighting, which isn’t funny and makes me cry. The soldiers set up cannons stolen from Aliens and prepare to all die like in Aliens.

Slater, Burke, and Tara Reid and some cannon fodder (including Françoise Yip) head into the mine, where Agent Deadmeat falls to his doom. Françoise Yip is then devoured by monsters that resemble Mothra and behave like the underground robots in Screamers. Outside, all the soldiers start getting killed by the monsters. A few live, only to die one by one. I guess we were supposed to care about them as characters, but we were never really introduced to them and have no idea who they are, nor why we should care about them. Anyway, they are all dead, like most of the films audience is at this point, though the audience’s wounds are all self-inflicted. Some plot stuff happens, but that doesn’t matter, because Dr. Hudgens wants to open a door, he then gets knifed by Burke in the worst knife throwing scene since….some knife throwing scene that didn’t work. Okay, fine, I’m not an expert in knife throwing scenes. The only ones I can think of are all good. Basically, the knife throwing scene is a microcosm of the film as a whole, it looks terrible, and so does the film. The Dr. cannot act, and neither can anyone else in the film. It makes you laugh, so does the film. Here it is, keep in mind this made it into a major theatrically released film, armed with money fresh from naive European investors:

Finally, on the other side of the door is a lot of monsters. Burke sets some explosives and ends up dying setting them off, kind of like Armageddon or any other movie with a weak script. This script makes Terry Schiavo look like Albert Einstein. Slater and Reid outrun the explosion, and go back to the city, only the city is empty. Some monster attacks them in broad daylight, as the film ends. The shocking ending. That doesn’t work. Also, the monsters shouldn’t be out in the daytime. But, what’s a little plot consistency?

Dr. Uwe Boll, please make more movies, as maybe you will inspire the rest of the world to unite for a cause, the end of your career, or at least a Renaissance in movie production to counteract your “films” ushering in a new golden age of film and stimulating an intellectual movement in America and the world.

Yeah, right. Expect The Sims meet Zombies directed by Dr. Uwe Boll to be at a theater near you in 2008! I’ll be there with bells on! Dr. Uwe Boll is an unstoppable movie making machine. He is the Terminator in director form. He can’t be bargained with. He can’t be reasoned with. Dr. Uwe Boll doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And he absolutely will not stop, ever, until we are dead! The world will not end with in fire and destruction, the world will end with movies, helmed by Dr. Uwe Boll, based on video games, poisoning humanity as a whole, as we exit the mortal coil and Earth becomes a lifeless sphere orbiting an ordinary yellow star, of which there is no more interest for passing life.