House of the Dead -- 2003 -- R

Wow. That was pretty bad. Normally, I'm one to comment on the story, but this film had so many shortcomings, it was just sad. Why did I watch this movie? Well, it's like this... I'm a member of this screenwriting site, and they're always trashing Uwe Boll movies. I'd never been so fortunate to have seen an Uwe Boll movie, so I thought I'd see his first one: an adaptation of a first person shooter video game. Holy load of crap.

Let's get the only redeeming quality in this film out of the way. The action scenes were well done. They were rather intense when it comes to level of danger and actions of the characters. So for about the middle third of the movie, we were moving...sort of. It played like a video game in that they were almost superhuman in their actions and never ending energy supply only running out of ammo at the convenient end. During this long action sequence, we got some matrix-y shots of the lead characters, but...we had them using one weapon during the fight and then a completely different weapon during the spin-around bit. We have digital cameras to remember these things; there's no excuse for that.

The story was razor thin. Basically, we get a bunch of kids going to a remote island and they all die and become zombies. Yes, the Romero rules are in full effect. So our first couple gives up lots of boobie shots and then she goes off looking for the missing boyfriend, walks into a house like an idiot and dies. Why do people just walk into houses in the middle of no where? Seriously, who does this?  

Our main group misses the original boat, so they follow behind overpaying some sea captain for passage, and he high tails it away from some coast guard chick in a weird and nearly pointless subplot. It has a thin point that comes up later, but it was mostly unnecessary.

My favorite directoral oversight was the on again-off again rain. It was raining on the captain's boat, not raining on land, not raining on the boat, then raining on the boat in the next few shots, then not raining again. During the part where it was pouring down rain, the captain walks to the edge of his deck, pops a cigar in his mouth, and pops on a lighter (which is strangely unaffected by the deluge around him), and lights his cigar with ease (also unaffected by the rain).

Amusing point two was an "old book" one of the characters found while snooping around this old house they holed up in. This book appeared to have been created on a printing press when the girl opened it and declared it was so old that something in there might help them. Personally, if I found an old book, I'd figure it was another copy of Tom Sawyer, not a vital piece of exposition. Worth something on eBay maybe... Anyway, she flips through this book an declares it was the first officer's log from the ship and said that so-n-so killed the captain and burned the ship. This was so ridiculous tht I half expected it to say "...and me too. And that's how I, the first officer, died a horrible death." If it were a first officer's log, why it is professionally printed and bound?

By the latter third of the movie, I was already numb to it. It played out ok, I suppose. Everything that was setup payed off, and there weren't any real surprised. We got a rash of cliches at the end which offered no surprises. Not even the final twist was a big shock. It was amusing, but not a shocker.

So the dislike of Uwe Boll is fully understood, and being the gluttong for punishment I am, I have a couple more Uwe Boll flicks lined up, but if this is any indicator of what I'm in for, I'm not setting my standards too high.