R, 96 minutes, Southwinds 12

Christian Slater stars as paranormal detective Edward Carnby who comes face to face with his past, and a number of horrific monsters, when a crazy professor opens a door to the dark side of the world. Aided by museum curator played by Tara Reid, he uses ancient artifacts to uncover the mystery. From the advertising, I thought this was a horror film, but it turned out to be another shallow action movie.

I have yet to see a good film made from a video game. The characters are uninteresting and annoying, especially Tara Reid’s character who is still wandering around like she’s in one of the American Pie movies. Slater is not much better—what is he doing? He used to make good films. The only semi-decent performance came from Stephen Dorff as commander Burke, but even he couldn’t save the film. Even the action sequences seem unoriginal, most looking like bad rip-offs of Aliens and Indiana Jones. By the last sequence, the film has become tiresome as we focus on characters we don’t know or care about.

I felt very much in the dark for most of the film, but not alone—there were five other people in the cinema, although one of them left before the end. Maybe fans of the game will pick up on more than I did.