GoldenEye (1995)

Common consensus dictates that your favorite Bond is the one you grew up with. Older generations will only acknowledge Connery, Gen X-ers have a soft spot for Moore, people my age are supposed to like Brosnan, the kids like their Craig, and nobody remembers Lazenby or Dalton. Of course that's subject to change depending on the person, and Connery usually gets reverence placed upon him even by people who prefer the other guys. But while the theory is not 100 percent true for myself, as I enjoy all the Bond actors with the exception of Moore, there is a part of me that will always have a special place for Pierce Brosnan.

The reason I have an affection for Brosnan's portrayal of James Bond is because to this day he remains the closest representation of the image I have in my head of the character. That's not only referring to his physical presence, but also his voice, the cadence with which he speaks, the way he carries himself, the way his hair looks, the way he shoots a gun, the way he delivers a quip, the way he wears a suit and even the way he drinks a martini. Everything about this guy is spot-on the way he would look if you pulled him out of my head and put him on screen. And I say this while having first seen Bond played by Sean Connery, although I can't for sure recall when I was first exposed to 007. The important thing is that even though I can't remember the first Bond movie I saw, I know for a fact it was pre-Brosnan since there's no way it took till I was 12 years old to see a Bond flick. So even with another actor establishing the character in my mind, even as a kid I took one look at Brosnan and said "Yes. That's what James Bond looks like."

In 1995, after a six year hiatus during which Timothy Dalton got fed up with waiting and quit, the world was introduced to a new, sleeker, shinier and, if I may be so bold, sexier James Bond with the casting of Pierce Brosnan.With him the modern Bond film was introduced, starting with "GoldenEye." This new style of 007 films had a faster paced, very 90's feel to them. Everything was very glossy and slick, and they didn't take their time getting going. And as far as look goes, this was about as far away from the grit of the Dalton films as you could get. They do still harken back to the 60's with their sense of fun, however, and in many ways they are delightfully retro, albeit with a much more expensive and polished appearance.

FANCY.

When talking about the Bond series, often "GoldenEye" is listed as one of the greatest movies the franchise has produced, and while it does have its issues it's difficult to find much reason to not include it among the best of the best. It has arguably the most instantly likeable Bond actor giving a fantastic performance, the villain was the first memorable main antagonist the series had seen since 1974, the action is plentiful and exciting, the stunts in it are jaw-dropping on occasion, the Bond girl is, in my humble opinion, the best one the franchise has ever seen, and it's legitimately fun and even funny when it needs to be. "GoldenEye" has, quite frankly, all the ingredients to make it the best Bond movie ever made. Unfortunately it's not the best, due to some odd bunglings, but that's not to say it's not a fantastically strong showing, and in my opinion it's the best debut any of the Bond actors have had.

The story begins with 007 infiltrating a chemical weapons plant in Russia with the help of 006, Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean). During the mission, an alarm gets tripped, and Alec gets taken out. Blowing up the facility and jumping off a cliff to catch a plane (Oh my god so awesome), Bond escapes, completing his mission but losing his friend in the process. Cut to 9 years later and we find him investigating Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen), a woman with a name so absurd that Pierce had to slightly break the forth wall when he first hears it, much like Connery did upon meeting Pussy Galore. Xenia is a suspected member of a shadowy group known as the Janus Crime Syndicate, and Bond has been sent to check her out in order to hopefully find leads to bring him to Janus, the head of the organization. All this ends with Xenia killing a dude with her thighs and then stealing a prototype helicopter.

BOOM.

Meanwhile at a satellite control station in Russia, computer programmer Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco) is the lone survivor when her complex is attacked by a rogue Russian general, Ourumov (Gottfried John). Ourumov then destroys the place using a secret Soviet space weapon code named GoldenEye, which emits a powerful EMP, causing all electric circuitry to be destroyed in the blast radius. Making her way to St. Petersburg, Natalya goes on the run until Bond, following the trail of the stolen helicopter, finds her, hoping to use her knowledge to stop any further use of the weapon.

And who is behind all of this? Why, of course it's Janus, and unless you're very unobservant you'd rightly guess that it's Alec Trevelyan, who is not only alive but also is the villain of the film. One could easily anticipate that since Sean Bean is nearly always a villain, but hey, the man is damn good at what he does. So by all means, make him a bad guy. Far be it for me to ever complain about that.

Sean Bean is, naturally, dynamite as Trevelyan, and I really like his character a lot as the bad guy. He's the closest match Bond has ever gone up against. He's a 00 agent with the same training, and he's able to guess Bond's moves since he knows him intimately. It's to the point where, were this not a Bond movie, there would be a good chance that Alec could beat him. It's a great match-up, and Bean plays Trevelyan with the same smug confidence and swagger that Bond himself possesses - a mirror image of himself he has to battle. So the name Janus, referencing the two-faced Roman god of change, functions on multiple levels here, both as references to Alec's scarred face, to his betrayal and hidden identity, and to the dualistic nature between him and Bond.

It doesn't mean anything, true, but it's a nice touch of cleverness from a series that gave us such intellectual powerhouse ideas such as naming a character "Holly Goodhead."

The second villain that 007 must contend with is Xenia, and I have to say that of all the bad guys in the Bond series, she is arguably the most depraved of the bunch. She's obviously a psychopath, as is any action movie villain, but she actually gets off on killing people. And I mean that in the most biblical sense. Watching her face as she mows down a dozen people with a machine gun, you'd swear she was ready to start filming a porno right then and there. In fact her preferred method of killing involves crushing people with her thighs until they suffocate while she's having sex with them. We see this. It's disturbing. And yes, killing put Scaramanga in the mood so to speak, but it's really far more creepy to see Xenia in action since you actually see her do it instead of the depravities simply being vaguely implied, and Famke Janssen is really playing it completely unhinged, perhaps more so than any other Bond villain I can remember. Frankly I greatly enjoyed her character because she is so off-the-wall insane. And also because Famke Janssen is absurdly hot.

Is it inappropriate to get aroused by this? I'm so conflicted right now.

But as awesome as Xenia is, I absolutely loved Izabella Scorupco as Natalya. She is, and I stand by this, the best Bond girl they've ever had. For one, she's not stupid. As a computer programmer of some respectable skill, she manages to save the day on numerous occasions, including figuring out Trevelyan's location and stopping the GoldenEye from firing - two things that Bond wouldn't have been able to do jack about otherwise. Second, she can handle herself, or at least attempts to. She's not picking up a gun and going John Rambo on anybody, but she doesn't just stand there and wait for James to save her while she does nothing. True she does get captured a couple of times, and Bond does rescue her, but trust me - the mere fact that she's fighting the whole way and moving her ass when she needs to puts her LEAGUES above the rest of the useless bimbos who would simply stand there and shriek "JAMES!" over and over again like they're a basket full of helpless kittens incapable of even attempting to preserve themselves. At least Natalya's trying.

And lastly, she's the only Bond girl to completely give James a hard time. She comes across less as a lustful, helpless, doe-eyed treasure and more like an angry Russian bear whose cave you just made the mistake of camping in. She doesn't take any level of crap from Bond, not falling for his charms and treating him like the jerk he rightly would be treated like if that character existed in anything like the real world. She yells at him, she calls him on his crap, tells him he's a heartless bastard, kicks him in the shins - it's actually very entertaining to see a women give James the business. I was actually pissed when she decided to lock lips with him since it was out of absolutely nowhere. It seemed like the writers forget they were writing a Bond girl and were writing an actual person there for a minute. Oh well. But that's what a Bond girl is there for I suppose. At least she's pretty badass while she's doing it.

I hated you so hard in the N64 game, though. Nightmare fuel hatred.

The rest of the supporting cast is also quite fun. Joe Don Baker pulls a Charles Grey and returns in a completely different role, this time playing a CIA agent named Jack Wade, who I guess is supposed to be our Felix Leitner equivalent. And Jon Don Baker is always fun to have around. Robbie Coltrane is also entertaining as an eccentric Russian mobster, and provides one of my favorite bits in the film - a scene where he identifies Bond by the sound of the hammer of his Walther PPK cocking back. That's so badass. And naturally it would be remiss to not mention the introduction of Dame Judi Dench taking over as M, a role she would play a commendable seven times. In fact, and this is maybe because I kind of grew up with her as M, it's difficult for me to think of anyone other than her in the part, despite Bernard Lee being the reigning heavyweight champion. I think it's because her role was given far more room for characterization.

So why don't I consider "GoldenEye" the best Bond? Well, the main reason is what would appear to be rather trite: The music. I'm not exactly sure what composer Eric Serra was thinking when he wrote it, in fact he's a great composer who did the soundtrack to "The Professional" and one of my favorite movies, "Wasabi," but his synth-heavy score simply doesn't work for a Bond movie. It's not enough to kill the mood or anything, in fact sometimes it works just fine, but more often than not it kind of beeps and boops in the background, very unassuming and easily neglected. More often than not it's so forgettable that you almost forget it's even there, which makes it seem like there's no soundtrack at all. And that's a real problem because the music of the Bond franchise has always been like another character in of itself, and its absence is sorely felt.

Imagine if Sigor Rios did the soundtrack to this. It would be 007 shooting people to the sound of whales singing. Then only wind and a single note on a keyboard held for half an hour.

The best example of why this works can be found in the only scene from "GoldenEye" when you hear the Bond Theme in its fully glory (for all of twenty seconds). When Bond is in Russia, escaping from a bunch of soldiers, he jumps out a window and into a parking lot full of tanks. Up to this point the action has been great, but the score has been enough to put you to sleep, making it feel about 75% of the way there. Then Bond steals a tank and blasts through a concrete wall with it, chasing the bad guys down the streets of St. Petersburg like a armor plated monster. At that moment, the John Barry score flares up in all its glory, and you suddenly realize what it was that was missing the whole time. It's the best single music cue, and one of the best moments in the film. If the rest of "GoldenEye" had followed suit, I would safely call it a serious contender for best Bond film.

Also, as much as I loved Sean Bean here, and as great of a job as he does, he's not really given enough screen time. Part of this is because his reveal as the villain doesn't happen until probably an hour or so into the film. And that's far too long. The parts leading up to that are fine, but up until then it's dealing with Xenia and Ourumov, who aren't our main antagonists. It's clear they're sidekicks, and we're waiting for the Big Bad to show up for quite some time. While Bean kills it in the time he has and the dialogue he provides, giving a lot of characterization with very little, the fact that he had to be jammed in there so quickly due to time spent with everyone else makes him feel not as fleshed out as he should have been. Trevelyan has a great story, but it's clear we're only getting the novel's synopses written on a post-it note. It makes him seem stock when he's really the most interesting villain 007 has ever gone up against.

Best. Reveal. Ever.

On a side note, I'm not sure why I got such a kick out of Boris (Alan Cumming) when I was a kid. Me and everyone else used to think he was the best character in the movie, and shouted "I am in-VIN-sible!" all the damn time. Watching him again all those years later, I'm not sure the of the reason why. He's kind of obnoxious, honestly.

The Brosnan movies did a great thing by modernizing Bond. If anything, they provided a balancing act between the silliness of the 70's and the more gritty tone of the (very) early 60's and the late 80's. They did go downhill rather quickly, to be honest. But man did it start from high heights.

NICE.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "GoldenEye" is damn near one of the best Bond films ever made. It's not the best, but it's at the very least in the Top 4. Easily. Taking an old-school vibe of fun and over-the-top adventure from the Connery era, a sprinkling of grit from Dalton, keeping the humor of the Moore era while actually being funny and not stupid, and then giving it all a sleek makeover and a fantastic new actor to play 007, "GoldenEye" created the modern Bond film. It's action packed, it's fun, it's sexy, it's everything a Bond movie should be. One of the greats.

JAMES BOND

WILL RETURN IN

TOMORROW NEVER DIES

Silent Hill: Revelation (2012)

You know, I guess this shouldn't be that shocking of a development. It's a pretty well established rule that there is no safety from a good movie getting a bad sequel. That's because the industry really doesn't give two polished sloth turds whether or not it's going to be a good film, or do any kind of justice to what came before it. All that's important is money.

Will it have a decent shot at making its budget back? Then it's green-lit. It's as simple as that. If there's a chance that might have some trouble doing so, they just make it in 3D so that they can charge $14.00 for a ticket and make their money back artificially by having each ticket sale essentially count as two. This is not difficult math to figure out. And with the overseas market which eats up American films like they were candy, they don't have to spend a lot of money to turn a profit. Which is why sequels rarely ever have bigger budgets.

I'm not mad at this, by the way. It's a business. I understand that businesses exist to make money. That's what they do. I'm just sad. I'm sad that so little care is given to quality. It's quantity that is the important thing. Quantity as quickly as possible once some modicum of success is found.

What I don't understand about "Silent Hill: Revelation" (Ugh. See "Lessons With Professor Pat #75" for my thoughts on that title. I'm so tired of complaining about it.) is why it took so long for it to get made. It's been 6 years since "Silent Hill." You would have thought that if they waited that long to make another one it would either be either a reboot or some kind of carefully crafted follow up. But this is a direct sequel, and it comes across has having been made in about 2 weeks after a drunken bet/cocaine party.

It's clear right from the very beginning that this movie was not made with the same artistic style and subtlety (yes, damn it, subtlety) that the original was. The sets look cheap, the effects are cartoonish as opposed to gritty and surreal, everything has that same crisp, glossy sheen that you see in music videos or the "Star Wars" prequels or the Platinum Dunes remakes of "Friday the 13th" and "A Nightmare On Elm Street." It is so far removed from the tone of the first film that it seems less like a sequel and more like a cut-scene from one of the games as directed by some no-name hack.

Hey look. Pyramid Head is in the latest Linkin Park video. How appropriate.

Not surprisingly, the best parts of "Silent Hill: Revelation" are whenever we're watching a flashback to the far superior "Silent Hill." And the flashbacks are all from the 8 mm sequence it had, which, even though it purposefully looked grainy and cheap, looks leagues better than anything else we see in this movie. Mostly because it looked somewhat real. This movie looks more like someone smeared Vaseline on an action-figure play-set.

After the events of "Silent Hill," we see that Harry (Sean Bean) and his daughter Heather (Adelaide Clemens) are living a somewhat nomadic lifestyle, going from town to town, always on the run from the cult of Silent Hill. They are constantly pursuing them in an effort to drag Heather back to the town, so that Alessa can be destroyed once and for all.

"But hold up," anyone who may have seen the first film might be saying. "Don't they mean 'Sharon' and not 'Heather?' And how in the world did she get back to Sean Bean? Didn't the end of the first movie imply that Silent Hill was like Hotel California in that you can check out but you can never leave? And where's Radha Mitchell? And aren't all the cultists dead? Wasn't that the entire point of the first film?"

I can explain some of that. The first is that Heather is indeed Sharon from the first movie, but she's changed her name so as to hide from the cultists. Why they continue to call her Heather after she's actually IN Silent Hill again I'm not so sure since at that point you're not really in Witness Protection anymore, are you? Just use your name at that point. It's confusing otherwise. This is especially so because since Radha Mitchell spent most of "Silent Hill" screaming "SHARON!!!" at the top of her lungs, I've kind of permanently associated that name with that character. Every time they call her Heather I have to mentally adjust the dialogue.

Well, on the plus side Adelaide Clemens looks so much like Radha Mitchell that she could be her daughter, so that's good casting. What? The character is adopted? Oh. Never mind.

It was also nice of them to completely obscure Jodelle Ferland's face from the numerous flashbacks they show to the first film, so that we never see her. That's fantastic. Thanks for that. I'm sure Jodelle also appreciated it since that meant you probably didn't have to pay her anything after recasting her character since she's older now. Even though there's no way that we would probably even be able to notice a difference between the new girl and Jodelle under that makeup, let alone mistake them for a different spooky little white faced girl in a purple dress who is ON FIRE. Heaven forbid this movie get confusing.

Sharon/Heather was indeed apparently able to escape from Silent Hill as explained by Rose (Radha Mitchell) via vision/hallucination to Sean Bean. From my understanding of it, somehow Rose found a way to send her back with no memories of the events of the first film, but she couldn't come back herself for some reason. That's about all the explanation you get, which is pretty much the screenwriter waving his hand like Obi-Wan Kenobi and saying "You don't need to concern yourself with that." I choose to believe Rose is a wizard, but only had enough magic for one last spell. It makes more sense that what "Silent Hill: Revelation" gave me.

As to the cultists of Silent Hill, out of all the inane, nonsensical ramblings of this film's story, that makes the least amount of sense. Even though at the end of the first film Alessa got her revenge and butchered the cultists like a Velociraptor in a room full of paraplegics, apparently now Alice Krige's character had a sister we've never heard of before, Claudia Wolf (Carrie-Anne Moss) and there's even more cultists now, despite Alessa running around free with impunity and nobody to stop her.

"Oh, we've been here the whole time. You didn't see us in the basement? We were all totally there."

So okay, fair question here: If Alessa got her revenge, who are these chuckle-heads living in Silent Hill now? How did they get there if Silent Hill was all about trapping the people who wronged her? Were they part of the original cultists, too? Why wouldn't Alessa just up and kill them since they have no sanctuary anymore? Why is this Claudia Wolf person able to operate out in the open if Alessa is unstoppable like they claim? And how is the undercover reluctant cultist Vincent (Kit Haringon) able to leave Silent Hill to go after Heather? If he can leave, why can't Rose?

And these are nitpicks, but how does the hell-scape of Silent Hill have a fully operational mental institution complete with people who must have to do paperwork and answer phones since we clearly see typed files on patients interned and answering boards lit up? Who would be calling? Do they pay people to work there? Do the demons have desk jobs sometimes? Do they have unions? Why is there even a need for a mental institution in what is essentially Hell? Everyone there is crazy. Are there people more crazy than crazy? Why is there a carnival? In fact, how does Silent Hill even have electricity?

AND WHY THE HELL IS MALCOM MCDOWELL IN THIS MOVIE!?

Seriously, Malcom? Is there anything you won't do for a paycheck? I know this is probably one of the bigger films you've been in recently, but for the love of Pazuzu you were in "A Clockwork Orange!" You are such a good actor, but you seem to only enjoy being in terrible, terrible tripe! Stop that, please! You can say "no," Malcom. You really can! I guess it doesn't really matter much. His part probably took a day to film at most. And he's unsurprisingly the best part of the whole affair despite his sole scene lasting all of 3 minutes, tops. I don't know what he got paid, but for a day's work it was probably pretty good.

So Heather and Vincent go to Silent Hill after Sean Bean gets kidnapped, Vincent turns out to be a cultist who lured her there but he is having second thoughts about it, they get captured, he gets thrown in the mental institution, she meets Malcom McDowell, there's something about this talisman that I never had the slightest clue as to the purpose of, she springs Vincent, there's a carnival, she joins with Alessa much like Rose did in the first movie, Pyramid Head comes and kills Claudia Wolf (which makes both Heather and Alessa's involvement utterly pointless since neither does anything to stop the villain), and then they leave but Sean Bean stays behind to find Rose. Foreshadow another sequel. That's the movie.

And no, I have no idea why they can freely leave Silent Hill, but Rose is somehow still trapped. That makes at least 5 people who have left the town without incident. What's Rose's hold up? Why are the rules as to when or if you can enter or leave Silent Hill apparently random? I wouldn't have as much of a problem if the rules were indeed totally nonsensical but it seems that the characters all understand what's going on like they have a pamphlet called "Silent Hill's Bullshit and You." Everyone gets it but the audience.

Some consistency is all I ask. Can I get some rules? Some order? Anything?

What's so frustrating about a movie like "Silent Hill: Revelation" is that it's clearly made with the expectation that the viewer has an encyclopedic knowledge of the games. I can't imagine it making the slightest bit of sense otherwise. But on the other hand, it's also clear based on my observations that this is most likely absolutely nothing like the games. And I can tell because I can't imagine a game having a story that made so little sense.

It's obvious that there are many, many references spread throughout, such as numbers on hotel doors given prominence and a red high-heeled shoe being in an obvious and very awkward place for no good reason other than it's clearly from the game. But all that doesn't make it an accurate adaptation. That just means there's a bunch of random stuff from the games thrown in there. There's a big difference between adapting something for the screen and just throwing nuggets of fan-service at us, and this is a movie whose narrative is completely fueled by that.

It would be akin to taking a box of "Star Wars" action figures, holding them up one by one and saying "Hey! Remember Luke Skywalker? Remember Han Solo? Remember Darth Vader? He has a red lightsaber that goes PSHFOOSHWOOOWOWOWOWOW! Nerf herder!!" and expecting that to make a cohesive narrative.

I'm guessing that pink bunny means something to someone, but all I get out of it is confusion and sadness.

I know there's probably answers to all of the questions I brought up. I know that if someone knew the games backwards and forwards they would probably be able to piece together the whys and hows. But that's no excuse for babbling incoherence. A film should be able to stand on its own merits apart from the source material. It's the same with novel adaptations. I shouldn't have to do research on what I'm watching while I'm watching it to make sense of anything. That's Screenplay 101.

And on top of everything else, it can't even make good use of its frankly outstanding cast. There are some heavy hitters in here with Bean and McDowell, and Carrie-Anne Moss is no slouch either. Plus I was really excited to see Kit Harington in something besides "Game of Thrones," as I think he's got a really promising career ahead of him after he's done being Jon Snow. But here he's just wasted talent along with the rest of them, though I did get a nerdy charge out of him saying "The dark is coming" since, you know, that and winter. Even our lead Adelaide Clemens, though she's still a relative unknown in American films, has potential I suppose. But she's certainly not given much to work with. And despite playing a grown up Jodelle Ferland, I assure you, she is no Jodelle Ferland.

I'm going to ask a very, very, VERY simple question here, by the way. In the movie, it's been 8 years since the events of the first film. In real life, it's been 6 years since "Silent Hill." Jodelle is 18 now. Same age as the character in "Silent Hill: Revelation." Why didn't they just, oh I don't know, CAST JODELLE FERLAND TO PLAY THE PART AGAIN? Does that just make too much damn sense? Plus it'd be the first film she's headlined since "Tideland" in 2005. Give the girl work!

Not that I'd want to see Jodelle in this crap, but DAMN IT, people! The person in this picture is the appropriate age to play her character again! This isn't hard!

Honestly, I don't know how I would have made this movie work. Having not played the games, I couldn't tell you if there's a good story to be made into a movie in there. There probably is, but at the very least, I can't see it involving any of these characters. Maybe if a new set of people got caught in Silent Hill there might be something to it. But then again, maybe it's best to just leave it alone for once and not make a sequel. How's that for a novel concept?

Check out the trailer and know that it's even worse than it looks.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Silent Hill: Revelation" is a mess. The story is rubbish, it looks cheap, and it squanders a pretty solid cast. Die-hard fans of the games would probably understand it better, but I can't see them enjoying it. In fact they'd probably hate it more than me because I'm guessing they screwed the source material up pretty badly. I'm neutral on it when it comes to fandom, but I do hate it for being a lousy follow-up to a movie I really liked. Boo hiss.

Silent Hill (2006)

I'm about to blow all ya'lls damn minds. You ready for this? Secure your butts firmly for the following statement: There do exist in the world good video game movies.

I know, it's crazy to contemplate but they're out there. Much like a field mouse hiding in tall grass from the sight of a circling hawk, they are shy creatures that don't pop their heads out often. Those are the good ones, anyway. The bad ones are like lemmings running off a cliff - numerous and stupid.

After the shellacking Paul W. S. Anderson gave the "Resident Evil" franchise by leaving an upper-decker starring Milla Jovovich in its bathroom, there seemed little to hope for with an adaptation of the other big survival horror video game franchise, "Silent Hill." I mean, what were we supposed to expect? Were we really supposed to believe that a French filmmaker was going to take a heavily cerebral game littered with nightmarish abominations against which there was no hope in fighting and make it into a movie that showcased helplessness and used the darkness in the human soul as the main antagonist in something that was truly terrifying? Why on earth would we think that?

Our expectations for these are at rock bottom because Paul W. S. Anderson thinks Alice needs to Matrix-kick a skinless dog. Because that's what I think of when I think "Resident Evil."

For that reason, I would not be at all surprised if you've never seen "Silent Hill." Trust me, I understand. I thought it looked like crap too. But even at the time it turned out to be a satisfyingly dark, twisted and disturbing film which I liked a good bit, and it's only gotten better over time as more and more video game movies have come out to remind us how rare it is to get one that's barely competent, let alone actually good.

"Silent Hill" is not an average video game adaptation, as there is less of an emphasis on action and more story and atmosphere going on. The few action sequences to be found are essentially made up of the characters running away from whatever is after them, as it's pretty near impossible to combat the more demonic residents of Silent Hill. And that's a perfectly logical choice to have, as it would have made far less sense for any of the characters to perform any kung-fu on Pyramid Head. And naturally, this makes the demons far more scary than a random zombie charging only to get its head blown off in a fountain of black CGI blood. Zombies get taken out all the time. The monsters here can't be. Which sounds scarier? Remember, kids, this is supposed to be a horror film.

Explaining the story of "Silent Hill" is a little bit of a challenge. After all it's based on a Japanese made video game. The stories to those never make any damn sense anyway, although this one is a little less obtuse than, say, your average "Final Fantasy" entry since VII. The main idea is that in a town called "Silent Hill," a horrible thing was done to a little girl by a group of religious fanatics. Because of that, the town burned, and the girl was split (?) into two halves - one containing all her generous amounts of rage (Alessa), and the other containing everything left in Alessa that was good and innocent, Sharon. Now, some 10 years later, the unknowing Sharon is being pulled towards Silent Hill so that Alessa can fulfill her revenge on the fanatics who still live in a kind of limbo in the town, almost like another plane of existence created by Alessa's rage.

Creating another realm of reality with your anger. That's pretty pissed off.

The religious metaphors are all over the place in this movie, so much so that I can't help but assume that most of the film is likely meant to be an allegory such as "Dante's Inferno." The imagery would certainly fit, and I know that there is a lot of symbolism to be found in the games themselves, which fans have speculated on much over the years. I started feeling like maybe the whole thing was a hidden allegory for stillbirth or the death of a child or something. Maybe it's a coincidence that there was a lot having to do with death coming out of someone's body, and maybe it's a coincidence that there's a lot of hospital imagery and even demonic nurses and undead child-monsters. And maybe it's also a coincidence that Radha Mitchell spends the whole movie running around looking for her lost daughter. But I'm not so sure.

Having only played the games for an hour or so (I was unable to get used to the controls), I can't vouch for the accuracy of the translation from game to movie. But from what I've seen of the games, this is probably one of the most accurate adaptations you can find as far as tone and atmosphere goes. The camera is also used in a fashion that is incredibly similar to the games, and it's actually quite noticeable that the filmmakers took great pains to get the little details just right.

Hellooooooo nurse! Wait, no. No "Hello nurse" for those ladies.

The camerawork is really something that deserves mentioning because I've never seen a video game movie pull off the unique look of a game so well. This is so important when it comes to franchises like "Silent Hill" that use the camera to add to the tension, as it blocks points of view on occasion to let us see anything except what's directly ahead. The most obvious shots among those include when Radha Mitchell is first running along the dark streets of Silent Hill after the dark "other world" appears. This whole sequence plays out much like watching someone playing the game, all the way down to Radha's running. It's fantastically well done and really sells the look of the movie.

In addition to the camerawork are some truly horrific gore effects that had me doing a double take and saying "Well, I've never seen THAT done before." And while I've seen gorier films in reality, it's a smart enough movie, and director Christophe Gans is a smart enough filmmaker to know that sometimes subtlety is the more effective path, and leaves some of the more gruesome moments either slightly hidden or cut so quickly that your eye can't absorb it fully, and leaves it more up to your imagination.

But sometimes, you just have to show someone's face in a big close-up as they get burned at the stake in real time.

My favorite segment of the entire film is a sequence that is shot like an old, scratched up 8 mm film. It shows what happened to Alessa as she narrates over it, and it's quiet, artsy, and chilling all at the same time. It's the best highlight to show off how stylistic "Silent Hill" is, how beautiful it can be in it's horror, and how serious it's taking itself as not just a "video game movie," but a film. I guess that's what you get when you hire French directors.

So the story is solid if a bit obfuscated at times, the creature effects are disturbing and effective, the gore is shocking but tasteful, the setting is oddly beautiful, and the suspense is pins-and-needles. The only thing that is left to mention is the cast, populated by some of my favorite actors like Radha Mitchell and Sean Bean, who are both always very good. And my favorite creepy girl Jodelle Ferland plays the parts of Shannon, Alessa and what is essentially the Devil. Jodelle's role is somewhat ironic considering that six years later she'd basically be reprising her role as Alessa when she played the witch in "ParaNorman." That's pretty funny.

How are you so good, Jodelle? You're like, 12 here.

The female driven supporting cast is also quite good. It includes a bunch of actresses I haven't really seen in much else, but I liked them a lot. Laurie Holden's tough cop who helps Radha Mitchell in her quest was a strong physical presence, and has one of the most powerful and disturbing scenes in the film. Deborah Unger was really creepy as Alessa's birth-mother, who is now I guess the crazy cat-lady de jour of Silent Hill.  There was also Tanya Allen as Anna, an ill-fated resident of Silent Hill who is almost innocent in her intolerance and bigotry, and I found her to be oddly cute despite her being filthy and kind of twitchy. And finally we have Alice Krige as the cult leader, a fantastic villain in a town full of demons, somehow managing to be more evil than the thing tearing people's skin off. And it took me forever to realize that she was the Borg Queen in "Star Trek: First Contact." Guess I didn't recognize her with hair.

Seriously. There are things that spit acid out of a hole in their chest, and you're the one who's scaring me.

One of the most interesting aspects that I mentioned before is that the real "villain" in this film is the darkness inside people themselves. Like the aforementioned allegorical aspects of the story, the demons in the town seem to be more like projections of the evil that the townsfolk have crafted themselves, only to have to be unleashed and turned upon them. And as they hide in their sanctuary from the evil they created through their cruelty and fanaticism, it's clear this is a battle they can never win, and they are all lost souls forever trapped in a purgatory of their own making. And Radha Mitchell has to plunge into this Hell to save her daughter and herself, which in itself may be wholly impossible.

It's easy to go into a movie like "Silent Hill" with a lot of skepticism. But this is a deceptively good film when you can get past the fact that it's a video game movie. In the genre it occupies it can hold its head high as an artsy, beautifully disgusting piece of work that does its job admirably. And it was also nice to see a movie based on a game wrap itself up nicely as opposed to leaving it open with an unsatisfying ending just to make sure they can make a half-assed sequel later.

Wait a minute. What's next on my list?

 AW, SON OF A -

Before getting to that mess, check out the trailer for the much better movie.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "Silent Hill" may be one of the objectively best video game adaptations ever made. It's moody, it's shocking, it's actually scary, and it even looks like the game it was based on. Don't let the genre scare you off. This is one that I really like.

Cleanskin (2012)

Ok everybody, I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that Sean Bean is in today's entry. The bad news is that it's a movie involving suicide bombers. So, yeah don't expect this to be the number one feel-good hit of the summer.

I don't think that I need to go into too much detail as to why movies about terrorists, particularly suicide bombers disturb me and make me uncomfortable. It's a subject that I feel quite strongly about, and even bringing it up makes me mad on a base level, not from a patriotic, chest-thumping, "I'm going to write a racist country song" position but from a position of it disgusting me as a human being.

On the other hand, I get to see Sean Bean kick some butt. I think I can maintain for that.

"Cleanskin" is an action film that takes some liberties with standard action film narratives. The story is mostly told out of order, as we flash forward and backward throughout a period of time of about 3 years, following what led the characters to the point they are at in the present day. However, not everything is always shown, which has the benefit of adding intrigue, which makes "Cleanskin" comes off as something closer to a spy thriller without the spies, but also has the unfortunate side-effect of rendering the plot a tad hard to follow, and making certain character's motivations somewhat hazy and unconvincing.

Sean Bean plays Ewan, a British secret service agent working to take down a ring of terrorists in London. He's a bit of a cold bastard, to put to lightly, and he has absolutely no problems setting someone on fire, as long as he suspects them of being a terrorist. To be fair, he is damaged goods, as his wife was killed in a suicide bombing years ago, so he has little sympathy for them. Still, this is our hero, ladies and gentlemen - A borderline psychopath from the Jack Bauer school of diplomacy.

Here we have Sean asking what time it is.

I call him our hero, yet not our protagonist, as it seems to me that Ash, the law school dropout who turns domestic terrorist, is our main character, at least in terms of who it is we're following most of the movie. A good portion of "Cleanskin" is focused on him, with Sean Bean only showing up every once in a while to beat someone up and then shoot them in the brain. So while Ash is clearly one of the villains, I'd say he's as close to a main character as this movie can get.

Ash is also probably the biggest issue I took with this film. Abhin Galeya, who plays him, can come across and intense and brooding, but I never really discovered the "why" of his character, which is a big point of the film. "Cleanskin" is supposed to be about the exploration of the mindset of a man who is willing to blow himself up, along with dozens of innocents, for a cause they feel is just. And while it does delve into that a little, it's hardly enough to make the character convincing.

The fractured nature of the narrative means that there are big chunks of Ash's life that we don't see. His mentor sends him to Afghanistan to make him tougher, and we assume he does since we're never told that Ash doesn't go, and his girlfriend seems to be quite upset because he left when she sees him again after another flash-forward. But we don't see Ash in Afghanistan, and we never hear about anything that happened while he was there. I guess we're supposed to assume that he became harder and more resolute.

But if you were to ask me, I couldn't spot a single thing about Ash that had changed after he came back. He seemed like the exact same person. If it was supposed to be an underlying, subtle change in him that "Cleanskin" was attempting to convey, boy did they drop the ball there, because I didn't catch any of it. And it was to the point that I actually thought the most pivotal scene of the film, the scene were he finally decides to go through with the suicide bombing, was actually showing him giving up on terrorism and deciding to be with his girlfriend.

And that's not a twist - I just think it's really bad characterization.

"I'm kind of bored. Might as well blow myself up."

What that means is that you have what amounts to a really, really lame villain because there isn't a single point when you believe his motivations, or even understand his motivations. During the climax, when it's a race between him and Sean Bean to see if Ash will manage to get to his target and blow it up, it's inter-spliced with video footage of Ash's confession/martyr note B.S. saying crap like "You have ignored us for too long, now will we make you suffer blah blah blah I'm an asshole" and whatnot. It's supposed to let us inside his head, but since we've never been told what's going on in his head, and we've never seen a good reason why he's so mad, it comes off as exceedingly whiny.

If you're going to have a movie about the mind of a suicide bomber, you'd better do some damn convincing writing. You can't just say "And then he met a militant Islamic preacher who told him to leave his girlfriend and kill a bunch of people and he decided to do just that." I mean, the dude had a good thing going in London. He had a nice life, a smoking hot girlfriend, and was set up to have a successful career in law. But then he met a dude with some anti-Semitic flyers and decided to kill people? Please.

Speaking of his girlfriend, she was one of the more interesting aspects of the film for me, even though she really didn't end up doing much or mattering very much. She's played by Tuppence Middleton, and by Crom is she gorgeous. Seriously. Stone cold beautiful. I just had to throw that out there.

Those eyes could be classified as WMDs.

It's just too bad that nothing ever really comes of her character. I realize that Ash leaving her is supposed to be pivotal to his story, but when his story is so unconvincing anyway it really ended up not mattering very much. So he leaves her. Big deal. It's not like it matters. I know nothing about this guy, so his "heart wrenching" decision to leave her falls pretty flat. And that's too bad because Tuppence Middleton is actually very, very good in this movie. She deserved better.

Overall this is an ugly movie. It's a mean movie. I'm sure that's the point. It's supposed to be hard to look at, but nobody in "Cleanskin" is very likeable, honestly. Tuppence Middleton comes the closest, but she's reduced to a nothing character. Sean Bean is always awesome to watch, but if Sean Bean is the "hero," I don't want to see him beating the hell out of a prostitute to get information from her, and then straight up letting her get murdered after he uses her as bait to catch a terrorist. That's something he should be doing as a villain.

Sean Bean as a villain I love. But if Sean Bean is the hero, which means he actually stands a chance of seeing the end credits alive, then damn it, I want him to be the hero! He doesn't always have to be an asshole, you know. He can do both!

Maybe it's just a mug built for villainy...

THE BOTTOM LINE - There's not much to recommend with "Cleanskin." I love Sean Bean but this isn't one of his better films. There's much better Bean vehicles to watch, like "Black Death." For movies that deal with terrorism better, I'd watch "Unthinkable" with Samuel L. Jackson. Hell watch "Air Force One." That movie actually dealt with the mindset of terrorism far better than "Cleanskin." Skip it.

Black Death (2010)

There's something really fun for me about really dark, gritty medieval films, especially when they have a twist of the supernatural to them. The setting lends itself to some fantastic creepy visuals, what with the fog rolling in through dark, dense forests and bogs so nasty looking you can almost smell them. I guess being a fan of D&D makes my imagination go into overdrive when watching films like that, which is why I love stuff like "The 13th Warrior," "Season of The Witch," and "Beowulf."

I even own a bunch of low-budget, cheesy dragon-slaying movies, simply because I enjoy the tone they set. Now, that doesn't mean they're good, but they serve their purpose. And they're surprisingly abundant, which makes sense since I'm pretty sure most of them are just filmed at the local Renaissance Festival, and apparently, John Rhys-Davies will work for mead and The King's Fried Pickles.

While John Rhys-Davies is sadly absent from "Black Death," it stars an actor who I like even better: Sean Bean. And for those of you who are saying "who is that," screw you, that's who. It's not like this guy hasn't been in some huge freaking movies. He's just one of those actors who shows up a lot, but nobody really knows who he is. If you are having trouble placing him, he's the guy who dies in nearly every movie he's in. Yeah, that's the guy.

"No, it's totally cool. I wouldn't expect you to remember me from Lord of The Freaking Rings..."

Sean Bean is an actor I find wonderfully charismatic, even when he's brooding, which he normally is. What I love about him most is his intensity. When his characters go off the deep end, he's freaking scary. Him and Liam Neeson need to do a movie together. That would basically be the best thing ever.

"Black Death" is a movie that really feels like "The 13th Warrior" in both tone and visuals. It's a very cold looking movie, even though there's no snow, and the air just seems thick and heavy. The deep greens and browns of the surrounding forest landscape help with that, as does the wardrobe and design of the characters, who dress mostly in black over their mud-smeared, dull armor. This is a movie that you feel like you need to scrape the dirt off the camera lense in order to see everything. I dig the hell out of the look, and it's a very pretty movie to look at.

The story concerns a monk named Osmund, played by Eddie Redmayne, who's town is ravaged by the black plague. Wanting to leave, he joins a group of soldiers led by Sean Bean, who are on a mission to capture a necromancer who is reportedly bringing the dead back to life, in a town on the edge of a swamp which has mysteriously not been touched yet by the plague. As the story progresses, faith is shaken and the nature of good and evil is explored as the mystery of the necromancer is uncovered.

While "Black Death" is slightly by-the-numbers, in the end it does what it sets out to do very well. It's a very well cast film, with Eddie Remayne and Sean Bean both giving fantastic performances, but the rest of the cast, including Emun Elliott (who was in both "Game of Thrones" and "Prometheus"), was very solid as well. I particularly enjoyed John Lynch (one of the dwarfs in "Snow White & The Huntsman") as the resident bad-ass of the group who carried around a ridiculously overly-serrated short sword that looked more likely to catch on something and get him killed rather than do more damage to someone. But he bit off a piece of someone's neck during a fight, and that's awesome.

Speaking of which, the violence was acceptably brutal for the genre, but never went too overboard with it. There are scenes that could have gotten really grim and disgusting really, really quickly, but since director Christopher Smith knows what he's doing, the violence manages to be disturbing and hard-hitting without actually showing all that much, at least compared to some other ultra-violent splatter-fests.

I also have to give the movie credit for having a pretty effective "I'm not quite sure what to believe anymore" twist near the end of the film, which might pave the way for some good discussion afterwords. And the final end of the film was just unexpected and messed up enough to be really awesome. I'm sure not everyone would agree, but as far as fitting the theme of what the nature of good and evil truly is, it is an ending that really works. It's the rare film that has an epilogue that makes you say "Dude, they need to make that into a movie!"

And yeah, Sean Bean dies. It's not really a spoiler at this point. He dies in every dang movie, and I've seen him die a lot, but "Black Death" contains one of the most epic Sean Bean deaths ever. Not only is it completely hardcore the way this guy goes out, but he has a moment of self-satisfaction beforehand, culminating in the line "I am Death" which is just awesomely bad ass. I always hate to see him go in a movie, but as long as his death scene is sweet, it was all worth it.

He is the only man to have been shot in the face by Batman through a book of Yeats poetry. So far.

THE BOTTOM LINE - I liked "Black Death." It's the kind of movie I can just kick back, drink a glass of wine and escape into a dark fantasy. It ain't high art, but it's entertaining as hell. Recommended.