Movie Review: Not The DaVinci Code

Yes, you heard me correctly. I did not go see the DaVinci Code.

I'm not really sure why I didn't. I guess I just didn't feel the need, seeing as how I couldn't pass anything resembling an LCD or CRT screen without seeing a review, a clip, or something somehow related to the damned movie. I turned on the damned History channel and watched them take the events in Dan Brown's prostituted book and try to make sense of them. A&E had insights on DaVinci's life, the story of the Illuminati...

For fuck's sake it's just a goddamned fictional book!

I admit it, I'm a little jealous. Most of my own writing is based on Christian theology and symbolism, and I guess I'm afraid that anything I try to get published now will probably get picked up just to ride Dan Brown's coattails. And I really don't want to be seen that way, to have everything I write compared to The DaVinci Code like its goddamned War and Peace.

*sigh*

So I didn't go see the movie this weekend.

I did, however, go see Silent Hill - a horror movie based off the popular video game of the same name.

Now...by and large, video game movies are supposed to be crap and campy. Tomb Raider, Doom, Resident Evil. But they're enjoyable crap. They know they're crap, so they don't try to seduce you with the hint of a story. You just get a lot of CGI monsters, people doing stunts that a crackhead on steroids wouldn't attempt, and a reason to laugh while watching an action flick. Or horror flick, as the case may be.

Silent Hill started out with potential. Fortunately they don't spend a lot of time on character development; you'll grow as annoyed with SuperMom as I was, and that's only in the first 10 minutes. Here's the story: Mom and Dad adopt a young girl, who has really bad dreams and sleepwalks out onto freeways. When she wakes up she can't do anything for minutes but scream "Silent Hill! Silent Hill!"

Somehow, Mom channels Sherlock Holmes and figures out that this refers to some obscure little ghost town in middle America. Dad thinks therapy and drugs are the way to fix Little Sharon, but nooooo, not Mom - Mom, possessed of that infinite well of "special" motherly wisdom that only infertile desperately neurotic clingy rich blonde women seem to have in these movies, decides that the best course for her little orphan annie is to sneak her off to Silent Hill (without Dad's knowledge) and see what all the fuss is about.

Cue the monsters, and the screaming, and all that freaky shit.

Needless to say Mom loses her daughter immediately after arriving in Silent Hill. It doesn't, however, take her very long to realize she's up Shit's Creek; I personally loved the scene where, after escaping from these weird lava monsters (I'm not joking) she runs back to the car (dead engine, of course) to call her husband and tell him "I'm sorry, I was soooo wrong, I need your help come get me!" on a staticky cell phone. Props to Dad, incidently; he knows his wife is crazy, and does everything possible from a distance to keep her from psychologicaly scarring his newly-paid for daughter. Inexplicably, however, he seems to stop caring about her once he himself arrives in Silent Hill, as every question is pointedly about his wife and not so much as a tear for the status of Poor Little Sharon.

The only reason to watch this movie is for the female cop who chases her down (...don't ask me WHY crazy Mom decided to RUN FROM THE POLICE OFFICER in the middle of the night, for NO REASON!) This chick is hot in a butch sort of way, and yes I admit I kinda liked it (spank me again, officer!) I thought I'd get some gratuitous nudity when the amorphic demon creature spews hot tar all over the cop, forcing her to remove her helmet, shades, and leather jacket (but not that tight barely-buttoned shirt, or those painted on leather pants - dammit!)

Seriously, she is the only reason this movie got any stars at all from me. She has some of the best scenes, like where she goes all Rambo on these three Jesus-freaks. Or when she's tied to a giant ladder, about to be lowered over a flaming pyre as a witch (yes, you heard me) she yells "What the fuck is wrong with you people? Why are you listening to her?!"

I could ask "why am I watching this movie?"

Save yourself the $10, don't even bother renting it when it comes out. Unless you're having a drinking party, in which case you can get pretty wasted by doing a shot everytime someone watching the movie says "what the fuck is she doing?"

The Trickster gives this 1 out of 5 stars.