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Ebert Reviews 'Silent Hill'
Last week, along with attending an 'epic' debate, Ebert had the time to take in Silent Hill. Did he enjoy it? Not so much. From the article: "Now here's a funny thing. Although I did not understand the story, I would have appreciated a great deal less explanation. All through the movie, characters are pausing in order to offer arcane back-stories and historical perspectives and metaphysical insights and occult orientations. They talk and talk and somehow their words do not light up any synapses in my brain, if my brain has synapses and they're supposed to light up, and if it doesn't and they're not, then they still don't make any sense. Perhaps those who have played the game will understand the movie, and enjoy it. "
A friend of mine got some screener passes so I went and saw this last night. I only have one word for the movie: AWFUL!
Let me say first of all that I was never a big fan of the game series. A number of the people I was with were, though, and they were just as dismayed as I was. There were little bits from the game stuck in there, but even those who caught them said they felt like scraps from the dinner table. The storyline vaguely follows the game, but I totally agree with Ebert for once. I even said to my friends afterwards that I felt dumber after having seen that movie.
I guess they must have realized their movie was terrible, because they threw in massive amounts of wanton violence and excessive gore in to try and cover it up. I had to actually turn my face away, something I've never had to do before, to avoid wathing a closeup of someone's face melting over a pyre. After that, it only got worse, and some of the disturbing stuff is definitely not from the game.
-Yoweigh
While there are plenty of critics out there who are a waste of print, Roger Ebert isn't one of them.
He is a serious student of film, he has seen almost everything ever made, and his opinions are well informed with details to back them up.
And yet, he's no stuffy academic either - he can enjoy a guilty pleasure as much as anybody.
Very, very rarely do I wind up disagreeing with him, and even when I do, I can usually see his point.
The man is a rarity: a great critic.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
I watch Ebert pretty much every week because he is intelligent and an insightful reviewer. Yes, his opinions differ from mine quite often, but he does a very good job of explaining why he doesn't like something, and sometimes suggests what type of audience would enjoy the film. He sees so many movies that I appreciate his point of view, even if I don't agree with him.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen
I think that most critics are self-important bastards.
I believe you just criticized critics, thereby making yourself a self-important bastard as well.
Ack! Now I'm one too!
In short, Ebert isn't the target audience. Those of us who've played through all the games and are eagerly hoping for a new one are.
Oh, so all 50,000 of you can go see the movie and it'll be a phenomenal failure. I hate movies that suck to someone who "doesn't get it" or who "hasn't read the book" or "hasn't played the game". We have a word for those kind of movies: crap.
The film is a different media. If the film can't stand on its own 2 feet, than as a film it's a horrible failure.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
How's bout this, send the $10-20.00 to me and then sit and think about getting a hobby or interest besides computers/videogames/movies/porn.
What's your address, or do you only accept Paypal?
I take movie reviews as restaraunt reviews. A greasy spoon will never break 2 stars, but you can still get a decent meal and a real cup of coffee there.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
...why video games have never made great movies. I think a big problem is that most game movies require that you've played the game to understand the movie. This doesn't make any sense, since the game stood on its own and didn't require any back story. Even sequals to video games are meant to stand on their own. I'm playing Metal Gear Solid 3 right now, never having played an MGS title in my life, and I'm loving it. But even the most obvious choices of games for the big screen fail in their ability to be self-contained.
The bottom line is that these are all cash cow titles. Noone makes a video game movie because they want to make great cinema or great art, they think that having an established fanbase will make the movie a sure success. Strangely, they're usually wrong, because catering to a small fanbase almost always means alienating everyone else, and that "everyone else" is most movie goers. The budgets for these films are too big to rely soully on small, pre-established fanbases. Serenity demonstrated that quite well, for the most part fans enjoyed it (I was a bit lukewarm to it, myself, however), but it didn't stand on its own, and was a total boxoffice flop.
I'm not convinced that movies made from video games can't be good, it's really no different from making a movie from a comicbook series, and that has become surprisingly refined as of late: two great Batman movies, two wonderful X-Men films, arguably a good Spiderman movie, and everyone seems to be raiving about V... it seems that comic book movies are on the rise and becoming more and more sophisticated, in their own rite. But when I saw Batman Begins, I didn't have to know anything about the history of the Batman franchise, and I didn't. I came out feeling like I'd just seen a great action movie, one of the best... and the fact that it was from a comic book was fairly irrelivant, and even pretty moot.
Maybe the percieved proximity of cinema to games tends to cause some laziness on the part of the writers and directors. Since modern video games are so cinematic in nature, directors make the mistake of simply directing the movie like the game was directed, which is a big mistake, since when it comes to pacing and lack of interactivity, the differences between even the most cinematic games and films are still quite different. Novels and graphic novels, on the other hand, are far enough removed that the flow of the narrative has to be completely recreated. And, as we've seen time and time again, a good adeptation is possible: anything from Brokeback Mountain to Sin City (though I, personally, was repulsed by the latter, I can't deny it's success for accomplishing what it set out to do). A good adeptation of a video game is possible, but it hasn't been demonstrated yet. And it has nothing to do with the cinematic nature of the original game. Silent Hill is one of the most "cinematic" games out there, and it seems that the movie has not lived up to expectation. The Metal Gear Solid series could be said to make a great movie... hell it's basically done by a film crew already, but I have no doubt that it could be ruined if not done in the right hands. The bottom line is, MGS has no better chance of making a great movie than Tetris; under the right guidence, practically any idea can be done thoughtfully.
I just hope to god John Woo doesn't follow through with doing a Metroid movie... he hasn't made a good film in years (if ever). The lack of dialog in the series would make it VERY hard to make a good movie, but if done right, with a really unique sense of artistic vision, could be amazing... and John Woo hasn't really proven himself to be much of a visionary.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.