Reviews

You don't expect much from a movie in 11:30 on Saturday on second-rate TV station. But, every once in a while, man gets pleasantly surprised.

Main reason for watching this film was a little thing I read in plot summary given on teletext. It said that first part of movie will show Hell's hierarchy, which fascinates me(Hell's hierarchy, not Hell itself). This film gives an unorthodox vision of Church and Hell in some kind of cold war and Earth as a battlefield divided in two equal parts, one under control of The Devil, an other under control of The God. When one event puts the World out of balance, Satan sends his minor servant to bring back the balance of powers. However, he has something else on his mind...

Somehow demoralizing display of weakness of a little man in world where big players pull the strings.

This is, undoubtedly, the worst movie I ever saw. May sound like overreacting. However, it is not. This movie has it all: the most irritating clichés, meaningless relationship between two leading characters, confusing effects, displaced music, quasi-artistic and quasi-philosophical sequences, scientific errors of massive proportions, weird-talking fisherman idiotic lines, non-existing characterization and plot together with complete lack of motives for any character and else. I was also shocked by Christian Slater. Well, he never was fantastic, but this is so degrading. As one of my friends said: "Playing in this movie was degrading even for those worms." So, let's start...

...with clichés. I will be so free to say that clichés are arch-enemy of any art. Why? Because they eliminate the most important part of any work of art---originality. And if there would be some scale that would measure number of clichés in a minute,I am sure this movie would be the very first on that scale. Actually, it looks like there is no original concept in this movie, everything seemed as it have already been said or done somewhere else. For example, "Abkani-ancient race which was so advanced that it opened portal to another realm". And guess who was there? But of course - "evil", which presents itself as mutant between Alien and werewolf and, furthermore, it procreates through some kind of worms( I mean was it so hard to think of something new instead of worm implanted in spine ). Then, a renegade super-agent held back by government and his honest,but misguided friend; then, young, slim blonde assistant with spectacles who falls in love with our beloved super-agent; then, quasi-erotic scene to present us humble and unworthy watchers their undying love; evil scientist does not kill our heroes, but orders them to throw their weapons,which,of course,returns to him like a boomerang(I never quite understood why such an evil characters are always reluctant when it comes to killing their heroic rival,although they already killed many other men); then more and more...My rating for this segment of this movie is 1. A big, fat 1.

Next segment analyzed will be nature of relationship between our hero super-agent and young-and-blonde-and-sexy-promising-and-spectacle-wearing scientist. If two people talk,cooperate,examine artifacts and explore internet, where does it take them. Normally,you wold say to healthy business partnership and mutual self-improvement. Well, Uwe Boll disagrees. He says: "If you meet a complete stranger of an opposite sex, and talk with that person, examine artifacts and cooperate with him/her while you are being chased by rampaging horde of evil mutant beasts and zombies for a whole two days, you will,most certainly have sex with that person." Hm. You can see more emotions and motives in porno. However, this """erotic""" scene is very short,somewhere about 30-45 seconds, and I rate it 2,for shortness.

Now, special effects, music and camera. Unlike other movies, where special effects are used to show something that is unable to be taped by camera and because they add another dimension to the movie, which, of course, makes movie easier to understand and to watch, special effects in this movie actually take a dimension of, should I say "watchability", away from it. Combined with loud music and camera jumping quickly(from soldier to alien, then back on the soldier,then on a dead soldier etc.) around, effects in form of bright lines in the air representing bullets flying in all directions, pose such a distraction, that after minute you can't stand another second of it. And there is at least 25 minutes of that kind of scenes in this movie. When first such scene happened, seven of us in room, were 10 seconds just astonished, and then we simultaneously begun laughing and laughed till the end of the scene. So, obviously,there are also elements of comedy in this movie. Of course,rating for this segment is formidable 1.

Philosophical dimension also must not be cut out when analyzing "Alone in the dark". Christian Slater, as a true renaissance man, can fight, make love,shoot, be humorous, do some archeology, see in the dark and philosophize. He has such marvelous insights in life, fear, "darkology", love and obliteration of man kind. Too bad is the fact that all he says is just pile of pompous nonsenses. For example: child says(with no particular reason):"My mommy says that there is nothing to be feared of in the dark", and Slater then said the best thing possible: "There is. When you have fear, there is better chance you will survive". Really something for a 7 year old kid to hear. There are also many other lines,or should I say quotes worth remembering in this movie,including: "Some doors should better remain closed." You rarely hear or see so original material. Of course, rating for this is 1.

Then scientific errors. So,when they're in Abkani facilities, young scientist can without any problems read all they wrote. How? Abkani lived 10.000 years ago in North America,when there were no other advanced civilization there. So there is no other writings scientists could compare to Abkani alphabet,and therefore,there is no possible way that scientists could decipher Abkani alphabet. Or maybe Champollion find it in Egypt alongside hieroglyphics. This could be a good theory as they were advanced race which opened a portal to another dimension,so they could travel around world. But no. As they are finding parts of inter-dimensional doors key, they see they are scattered all around the world. The explained why: "10.000 years ago Chile was pretty far away". Well, didn't they say Abkani were advanced, and if they were able to travel to another dimension, why would it be so hard to go to Chile. Rating - 1.

Anyhow, this movie is a disaster, it is worse than "the worst", the comparison-of-adjectives should have fourth level just for this occasion. I would rate it "-10" if it were possible, but sadly 1 is a minimum.