Wow.

I just got back from watching Silent Hill and I was quite OK with it. I think if I had to give the movie a grade it would probably land in the C+ to B- range.

Ebert's mini-review pin-pointed one of the things I really loved about this film, the art direction. There are times, when watching the movie that I almost felt like I was watching an experimental film. The movies use of lighting and color was very interesting. Several scenes really blew me away, like when the lead is running through the streets of Silent Hill and the world seems to just fade away into the blanket of white ash that falls all around her.

Another thing that helped the movie was its amazing use of sound. Much like the early games, sounds are a key element to the tension and fear built-up through out the movie. Be it otherworldly echoes or industrial noise, the sound was expertly blended in to help highlight the emotional moments of the story.

The story and acting were the movies only weak points. I wouldn't say there were bad, by any stretch of the imagination, but they didn't quite live up to the cinematography and sound engineering. The plot had some nice twists, but it didn't flow very cohesively. I was quite enjoying being baffled, mystified, confused and a little scared. I didn't really want someone to walk me through the back story or explain what I wasn't getting. There was just a tad too much handholding for my taste.

The acting wasn't stellar, but it rarely took away from the experience. The few exceptions were the strange, almost disjointed, scenes that take place outside the town of Silent Hill. They almost feel as if they were tacked on at the last minute, and the acting is a bit bumpy.

Silent Hill would have been a much stronger film, more concise, more powerful, if they had just stuck to the story inside the town and done away with all of that husband-looking-for-his-family angst. The jumps back to the "real" world broke the spell that Silent Hill often so delicately wove around viewers and dispelled much of its hold.

I think this is the first video game adaptation that I've even considered judging on its own merits and not as an extension of the game it was built around.

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