SPOILERS Silent Hill Review SPOILERS
It's quite hard to say what to make of Silent Hill. It had mixed reviews along all spectrums of movie goers. The fans, the critics, the general mass. Even it's Box office tally was very lucky to even clinch #1 for a weekend at $40 million in which a lot of people could say is a moderate but not entirly sucessful amount. I personally have been waiting to see this for quite a while and when I did I came walking away with some mixed feelings.
Basically to say, this is a film that is probably the most accurate video game movie adaption to date. The video gamer in me appreciated the sentiment to take careful detail in expressing correctly the details of the game. The visual feast that came from it all really gives you a sense of nervousness, especially when you enter the dark world of Silent Hill...filled with metal rust and blood. The story itself, I found to be a tad disappointing that instead of a cult worshipping for the birth of a demon god, they were instead a cult who was bent upon burning anything they see as blasphemous. Instead of a pagan/alternate religious demon, we get a vengeful spirit along the vein of The Ring or The Grudge. I thought the original Silent Hill demon would have produced a more engaging and more weird aspect of the movie, but instead they opted for a more simplified version.
However it does lend itself to a moral conflict on behalf of the main character Rose, of how far is she willing to go and save her daughter. Is she prepared to accept and assist what was essentially pure evil to basically fullfill a long overdue vengence ass kicking upon a lot of misguided (but clearly deluded) cultists? Was it right to assist someone basically trapped people in a hellish version of Silent Hill through a pact with a demon. Who exactly won in the end? In the moral conflict is akin to the Jennifer Lopez movie Enough who actively searches out her ex-husband to actually kill him and set him up to have him attack her in a bout of self defense. But with Silent Hill, there is some sort of empathy that arose from me when I saw so many people that deserved to be killed. It isn't so much that they are evil themselves, but because they are misguided that perhaps makes them so empathetic at the same time...also just as fucking dumb. But gore there is..there is a lot of gore and a lot of painful moments that makes it worth of a R rating.
This does bring up the more mixed reaction on video game adaptions. Basically what we as gamers want from a video game adaption. I personally think with movies such as Silent Hill and Doom, that in some respect we are stepping into the right direction for video game adapted movies. That perhaps in some way movie technology has caught up to reproduce fairly accurately what a video game should look like on the movie screen. But possibly more importantly that video games themselves has gained more respect and exposure to mainstream culture, *and* the that games themselves are becoming more like movies lends more emphasis on making an accurate movie.
This brings up the question...do we just want to see a video game in a movie format? The thing is I feel that I want more than just walking away or even expecting something from the game to occur on the big screen. That I want something more than just seeing Pyramid Head appear in Silent Hill, more than just Cloud fighting Sephiroth in Final Fantasy Advent Children or more than just seeing a FPS moment in Doom. In other words I want something more than fanservice. A long time ago when I still actually pined for many games to be made into movies or become translated into television shows, I wished to have video game movies as validation of my interest...my hobby. That to show the world or even share with the world a bit of joy that I get from playing a video game.
Nowadays after many failure after failure, what I want is a film. I want a movie that can be considered or even be mistaken for a film upon it's own while still satisfying the fanservice craving I would want. And perhaps the main problem (as with most other adaptions) is the fact that games storytelling and movie storytelling are different, much like books to movies or anything else. They are just different requiring different pacing and what not. I still consider Mortal Kombat to be a better film despite being directed by Paul Anderson because when I came out of it, I gotten more than just seeing my favorite characters be put onto the screen. I got to see something that could have been considered a film in the first place. The Fatal Fury series of anime I consider to be even better because it not only manages to satisfy the requisite appearance of characters, it does so in a way that is entertaining and makes it engaging.
So it's a good advance, however I hope that this doesn't merely produce carbon copies of video games onto movie screens for the sake fans and ignoring everyone else.
Basically to say, this is a film that is probably the most accurate video game movie adaption to date. The video gamer in me appreciated the sentiment to take careful detail in expressing correctly the details of the game. The visual feast that came from it all really gives you a sense of nervousness, especially when you enter the dark world of Silent Hill...filled with metal rust and blood. The story itself, I found to be a tad disappointing that instead of a cult worshipping for the birth of a demon god, they were instead a cult who was bent upon burning anything they see as blasphemous. Instead of a pagan/alternate religious demon, we get a vengeful spirit along the vein of The Ring or The Grudge. I thought the original Silent Hill demon would have produced a more engaging and more weird aspect of the movie, but instead they opted for a more simplified version.
However it does lend itself to a moral conflict on behalf of the main character Rose, of how far is she willing to go and save her daughter. Is she prepared to accept and assist what was essentially pure evil to basically fullfill a long overdue vengence ass kicking upon a lot of misguided (but clearly deluded) cultists? Was it right to assist someone basically trapped people in a hellish version of Silent Hill through a pact with a demon. Who exactly won in the end? In the moral conflict is akin to the Jennifer Lopez movie Enough who actively searches out her ex-husband to actually kill him and set him up to have him attack her in a bout of self defense. But with Silent Hill, there is some sort of empathy that arose from me when I saw so many people that deserved to be killed. It isn't so much that they are evil themselves, but because they are misguided that perhaps makes them so empathetic at the same time...also just as fucking dumb. But gore there is..there is a lot of gore and a lot of painful moments that makes it worth of a R rating.
This does bring up the more mixed reaction on video game adaptions. Basically what we as gamers want from a video game adaption. I personally think with movies such as Silent Hill and Doom, that in some respect we are stepping into the right direction for video game adapted movies. That perhaps in some way movie technology has caught up to reproduce fairly accurately what a video game should look like on the movie screen. But possibly more importantly that video games themselves has gained more respect and exposure to mainstream culture, *and* the that games themselves are becoming more like movies lends more emphasis on making an accurate movie.
This brings up the question...do we just want to see a video game in a movie format? The thing is I feel that I want more than just walking away or even expecting something from the game to occur on the big screen. That I want something more than just seeing Pyramid Head appear in Silent Hill, more than just Cloud fighting Sephiroth in Final Fantasy Advent Children or more than just seeing a FPS moment in Doom. In other words I want something more than fanservice. A long time ago when I still actually pined for many games to be made into movies or become translated into television shows, I wished to have video game movies as validation of my interest...my hobby. That to show the world or even share with the world a bit of joy that I get from playing a video game.
Nowadays after many failure after failure, what I want is a film. I want a movie that can be considered or even be mistaken for a film upon it's own while still satisfying the fanservice craving I would want. And perhaps the main problem (as with most other adaptions) is the fact that games storytelling and movie storytelling are different, much like books to movies or anything else. They are just different requiring different pacing and what not. I still consider Mortal Kombat to be a better film despite being directed by Paul Anderson because when I came out of it, I gotten more than just seeing my favorite characters be put onto the screen. I got to see something that could have been considered a film in the first place. The Fatal Fury series of anime I consider to be even better because it not only manages to satisfy the requisite appearance of characters, it does so in a way that is entertaining and makes it engaging.
So it's a good advance, however I hope that this doesn't merely produce carbon copies of video games onto movie screens for the sake fans and ignoring everyone else.
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