I tend to enjoy the movies I watch. This means that my opinion usually goes against poorly received pieces. It happened to me with In the Name of the King, which I rather enjoyed. And there's The Bride of the Monster, which does have some stupid moments and pacing issues, but I still don't view it as catastrophic. Manos: The Hands of Fate is bad, but I respect Harold Warren for creating a movie without any kind of education in film.
So, let's turn to House of the Dead. The first 20-25 minutes were quite good. The movie begins with a short and not-too-informative introduction to the four teens that wish to get to some island, and have fun with friends there. Some, who are pickier about movies than I am, say that characters are best introduced through action than any narration, but not much is revealed about them, so it's no big deal. The dialog sequence aboard the ship was clever, funny, and served its purpose of establishing the characters, especially the captain.
Many complained about the characters' decision to stay at the deserted camp instead of running away, but please note that all but Alicia was drunk, so don't expect them to make rational decisions. Was Alicia's decision to go investigate rational? No, it wasn't, but the movie had to move forward, didn't it?
The movie went on, and I haven't gotten the impression that it was as bad as the reviews suggested it was. It looked like a typical horror movie, and it continued and ended that way. There are dark places, zombies sneaking in the forest, characters getting introduced (and killed), a hooded figure in the distance observing the humans, etc. The usual horror move stuff.
Possibly weakest part of the movie is the big shoot-out scene in front of the house. It's spectacular, but way too long. They kill zombies by the dozens, and not much else happens. One may argue that the battle scenes in The Lord of the Rings trilogy are even longer, but there are twists in them that serve a narrative purpose.
Also everyone aims perfectly, and they don't run out of ammo until the plot requires them to. Neither is an unheard-of plot device, but since the fight is very long, it becomes noticeable.
I also don't understand the narrative purpose of the in-game clips. It would have been better if Boll left them out entirely.
Surely, HotD isn't a *good* movie, but I fail to see why it received so much flak. I basically mentioned everything I disliked about HotD, and that's all I could find in a 90-minute-long movie. There are things I liked as well. Pacing is generally good, the dialogs are decent, acting is surprisingly good for a movie with this average rating. The flaws don't outweigh the pros, so I give it a 6.
So, let's turn to House of the Dead. The first 20-25 minutes were quite good. The movie begins with a short and not-too-informative introduction to the four teens that wish to get to some island, and have fun with friends there. Some, who are pickier about movies than I am, say that characters are best introduced through action than any narration, but not much is revealed about them, so it's no big deal. The dialog sequence aboard the ship was clever, funny, and served its purpose of establishing the characters, especially the captain.
Many complained about the characters' decision to stay at the deserted camp instead of running away, but please note that all but Alicia was drunk, so don't expect them to make rational decisions. Was Alicia's decision to go investigate rational? No, it wasn't, but the movie had to move forward, didn't it?
The movie went on, and I haven't gotten the impression that it was as bad as the reviews suggested it was. It looked like a typical horror movie, and it continued and ended that way. There are dark places, zombies sneaking in the forest, characters getting introduced (and killed), a hooded figure in the distance observing the humans, etc. The usual horror move stuff.
Possibly weakest part of the movie is the big shoot-out scene in front of the house. It's spectacular, but way too long. They kill zombies by the dozens, and not much else happens. One may argue that the battle scenes in The Lord of the Rings trilogy are even longer, but there are twists in them that serve a narrative purpose.
Also everyone aims perfectly, and they don't run out of ammo until the plot requires them to. Neither is an unheard-of plot device, but since the fight is very long, it becomes noticeable.
I also don't understand the narrative purpose of the in-game clips. It would have been better if Boll left them out entirely.
Surely, HotD isn't a *good* movie, but I fail to see why it received so much flak. I basically mentioned everything I disliked about HotD, and that's all I could find in a 90-minute-long movie. There are things I liked as well. Pacing is generally good, the dialogs are decent, acting is surprisingly good for a movie with this average rating. The flaws don't outweigh the pros, so I give it a 6.