Video Game Movies Week: Far Cry

Hello and welcome to Day 1 of Video Game Movies Week and yes I know this is a risky notion given how many of these films have let us down in the past but what the heck, I might not have to seen limbs fly apart and blood caking the walls.  Because I already saw BloodRayne, punks.   Seriously though, that film was lacking any character or plot development and had a significant amount of nudity for no reason at all.  

Today I thought I would take a look into a Uwe Boll film and yes I know I have said countless times avoid these movies like the plague due to its inane need for voice over narrative, real motion camera work and more tricky zooms to see how long it is before the audience projectile vomits but I am a glutton for punishment.  Who knows, maybe it will be closer to the source material than most films.   This is Far Cry.

Either these tourists go or I do.

Dr. Krieger: You're just a spoiler boat man.
Jack Carver: I didn't say anything about being simple.







The story is centered around Jack Carver (Til Schweiger of Intimate Affairs, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, Phantom Pain, Inglourious Basterds, New Year's Eve and This Means War) a former US Army Special Forces veteran who has had a belly full of killing and simply wants to run his charter boat service as his fare Valerie Cardinal (Emmanuelle Vaugier of Smallville, House of the Dead 2, Painkiller Jane, Supernatural, Saw II, Unearthed, CSI: NY, Covert Affairs and Lost Girl) a young journalist who is wishes to visit her uncle Max (Ralf Moeller of Universal Soldier, Conan, Gladiator, Andromeda, The Scorpion King, Crazy for Love, Postal and Alone in the Dark II) whose research is on an isolated island under government management.

I present to you: Edgar Winter on steroids!

No sooner has Valerie gotten on the island she gets kidnapped by lackeys of Doctor Krieger (Udo Kier of Johnny Mnemonic, Barb Wire, Blade, Stingers, End of Days, Feardotcom and Dracula 3000) a brilliant but warped scientist who is hell bent on creating the ultimate super soldier but thankfully he is not a Nazi nor son of a Nazi war criminal and in fact, being German has no barring on the performance or project.   Jack's boat gets blown up with the nitwit toadies thinking he had seen too much of the island but unbeknownst to our underlings they failed in dispatching a man they could have just easily paid off to look the other way.  Now Jack is working his way around the island, dispatching bad guys like a Stallone or Schwarzenegger film, attempting to rescue the girl and stop these mad experiments.   Will Jack triumph or will the villain finally win the day?

Okay I have a few comments to make about the film now.  The action base of the flick feels like a 1980's film in that the action actually kicks ass.  Til Schweiger's take of Carver makes him a fairly likable guy that wants to walk away from being the good guy but in the end submits to his nature and opens keg worth of whoop ass on the villains and gets some decent lines.   Once again Michael Pare (The Philadelphia Experiment, Streets of Fire, Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives!, Village of the Damned,BloodRayne,  BloodRayne II: Deliverance and Gone) makes his way back with Boll for another straight-to-DVD flick and you know, he seems okay with that.    Oh FYI, the actors with the exception of Scheweiger have no weapons training or discipline.  Jeez Boll, stretch the budget for some SWAT and infantry seminars and demonstrations.

My real only complaint is the cinematographer Mathia Neumann (House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, BloodRayne and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale) is trying to kill off photo-phobics.  That real motion camera feel a.k.a. no bloody stabilizer or gyro mount for the camera makes me want to puke.  the repetitive motion is making the action bounce around and will give migraine sufferers a fricking migraine.  Take that to heart if you consider this film for viewing.  BAD ON THE EYES AND BRAIN.

For you FPS fans, well this is roughly about 50% of what the Far Cry game is and gasp, Carver is not Native American in the movie and yes the super soldiers are not referred as genetically altered beasts called Trigens and look human with contacts and make-up but let's be honest.  The game itself is less than original, over-the-top and frankly a bit ridiculous.  Giving a first person shooter game a plot isn't a bad thing but I always found the game itself to be lacking and waiting more out of it.

Get me off this set!!!