Title: Silent Hill: Revelation 3D
Director: Michael J. Bassett
Cast: Adelaide Clemens, Kit Harington, Deborah Kara Unger, Martin Donovan, Malcolm McDowell, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Sean Bean
A good video game movie is the golden goose of modern cinema. The sequel to the video game adaptation “Silent Hill” in 2006, “Silent Hill: Revelation 3D” embarks on a strange journey into the mind and soul of its characters and viewers. Not much as changed with the idea that video game to film adaptations are never a good idea, “Silent Hill: Revelation 3D” ensures that trend, and while it’s dazzling at times, it will leave an audience hungry for a better movie and experience.
Following the events of the first film, “Silent Hill: Revelation 3D” starts with Sharon (Adelaide Clemens), a teenager who recently moved but feels like something is missing in her life. That something missing is her mother, as Sharon has brutal nightmares of a mysterious place called “Silent Hill,” unaware if “Silent Hill” is a real place or not, Sharon searches for answers but runs into a speed bump when her father, Christopher (Sean Bean), goes missing. She ultimately goes looking for him at “Silent Hill” with the help of a new classmate, Vincent (Kit Harrington), that she meets on her first day at a new high school. What she finds is inexplicable, incomprehensible, and at times haunting.
What is going on in this movie? It’s either a fevered dream by the likes of David Lynch or just random images that don’t fit together assaulted by shocking imagery and put together by bad acting. Now “Silent Hill: Revelation 3D” is not a masterpiece, a good movie, or coherent, it’s a “B-movie” wrapped in a maddening post-apocalyptic journey and aesthetic like you’d see in “Mad Max.” A viewer would be left with the question “why?” Why is there a madcap circus in the middle of a mental hospital? What purpose do eyeless, cadaver-like nurses serve in a mental hospital? Are there elements put into the movie because they were in the video game?
The story and journey of “Silent Hill: Revelation 3D” isn’t cohesive as elements, like a police detective investigation, are never realized, built upon, or returned to. It just seems like the most important thing the filmmakers wanted with the movie was to simply get Sharon into “Silent Hill” and let wacky stuff happen to her. The storytelling elements would be justified if, in fact, “Silent Hill: Revelation 3D” was scary, which it’s not. It’s only mildly creepy and often times silly. It just left this reviewer asking “why?” Skip the movie and play the video game. The experience of holding a video game controller would be more rewarding than having to put yourself through this movie.
Technical: D+
Acting: D-
Story: D
Overall: D
by @Rudie_Obias
