Silent Hill really kinda sucks.

You know what I really kinda hate? Movies whose entire paint-by-numbers plots are completely predicated on the main characters being either stupid or insane or both. And what I hate even more is when said characters aren't developed even a smidgen - because if a movie can't be bothered to care about its characters, why should we?

Silent Hill is one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time. Granted, it's a videogame movie, so I probably should've avoided it like the plague to begin with, but it was written by Roger Avary and directed by Christophe Gans - two filmmakers whose previous work I admire - so I was genuinely intrigued. But I came away thoroughly amazed by the utterly pointless (and offensively misogynistic) seen-it-all-before (only better) derivative inanity of it all. Admittedly, I never played the videogame(s) - so I don't get the significance of The Creature With A Roof For A Head (is that supposed to be scary?)... but then again I've never read The Godfather, Doctor Zhivago, or Gone With The Wind either, and those (and countless other film adaptations) managed to stand on their own two feet, thank you very much.

Not only does the film's entire premise rest on a wildly unbelievable string of actions taken by the main character(s)... not only does every character consistently spout dialogue no real person ever would... not only is the cop dressed like an absurdist leather lesbian fetish fantasy... not only does most of the movie look like an extended regurgitation of a '90s Nine Inch Nails music video... but the entire movie comes to a screeching halt at the end of the second act for an extended stretch of exposition so that - oh, yeah! - the cliché-ridden plot can be explained to us (and the wholly unsympathetic idiot of a protagonist). Kinda.

Then there's a big bloodbath showdown with the Borg Queen while a pipe organ blares and lots of CG barbed wire flies around, followed by a completely unsatisfying, self-indulgently ponderous ending. (You have been advised.)

P.S.: And by the by, what marketing genius at Sony thought a good idea to promise "Mysteries Without Answers" in the trailer? (And why are all Sony Pictures websites so embarrasingly slow to load?)