MrPaull0324

While I'm not much of a fan of "Alone in the Dark", I've played learned enough about "The New Nightmare" to realize this is a God-awful adaptation of "The New Nightmare". And with the infamous Uwe Boll direct, that shouldn't come as a surprise at all, having already completely crapped the bed when he directed "House of the Dead" in 2003.

As expected, Uwe Boll butchers the original story from the game. It's rendered sloppy and difficult to follow. The opening crawl in the intro alone gives away too much and there isn't even any footage showing these events that might have made the film a little bit better. I guess you can thank the low budget for that.

Par the course, the movie bears little faithfulness to the game. There are some new one-dimensional characters thrown in, like Richard Burke (Stephen Dorff) while others just have their names changed, like Lionel Hudgens clearly being a renamed version of Alan Morton. All of the characters, new and original are flat as cardboard and apathetic even toward deaths of comrades or just complete idiots who make dumb decisions, like imploring Hudgens not to open the door to hell, then they just walk on through it instead of doing the smart thing and staying out or trying to close it back up instead.

The special effects are horrible. There are cheap and poor-quality CGI models used for the Xenos and their infant worm forms with jerky movements and unimpressive designs. The Xeno creatures didn't look very cool either with their unoriginal designs that felt ripped off from the Xenomorphs in the Alien franchise. I'm surprised Ridley Scott didn't sue Boll for that. Even the zombie's make-up doesn't look very good; at least it was decent in House of the Dead. In fact, nothing in this film looked good; all of the sets and scenery were cheap and unimpressive, nothing like the eerie and mysterious setting of Shadow Island in the game.

The action scenes are poorly choreographed, repetitive, or over the top, like the museum shootout and the final battle at the Bureau 713 building with inadequate lighting, overused slow-motion and close-ups and choppy camera work that darts around all over the place. It was like the graveyard scene in House of the Dead all over again. Only somehow worse.

The soundtrack is bland and pretty generic. And to top it all off, the horror factor is weak and predictable. Oh look, a security guard hears a strange noise and goes to investigate then gets killed from behind? That's been done. Or a lone soldier wandering off from the rest of his team in a dark building? Yawn. And finally, since Uwe diverts away from survival horror and focuses on uncoordinated and excessive action instead, the movie doesn't feel like "Alone in the Dark" at all.

The acting is terrible and the dialogue sounds. Nobody is trying here. Christian Slater sounds tired and bored as he apathetically reads his lines and giving an unnecessary voiceover. He has shallow and dry relationships with Aline Cedrac (Tara Reid). Even when he kills his "old friend" John while he's a zombie or when discovery the dead body of a nun at the orphanage he grew up in, he doesn't even bat an eye. I guess by this point, Uwe Bolls notoriety must have been common knowledge in Hollywood, and the actors were all just desperate for a paycheck to get by and didn't bother putting in any effort. And the romantic subplot between Carnby and Aline (Tara Reid), which doesn't even work, is just a failed attempt to liven up the film with romance.

Even for Uwe Boll, this was a horrible and nigh-unwatchable cesspit of a movie and an embarrassment to the source material. I wouldn't even consider it one of those "so bad, it's good" films like House of the Dead. It's just bad, mind-rotting and boring. And sadly, Boll wouldn't quit while he was ahead no matter how badly people wanted him to.

I never thought I'd play a more enjoyable game than the old school DKC games released back in the 90s. But I thought wrong, because this game was absolutely spectacular! It was as awesome as DKC1 released way back in 1994.

First of all, I loved the gameplay formula and shift in Donkey Kongs relationship with Pauline. In the original 1981 game, DK was a bad guy and Pauline was a woman he kidnapped and played a damsel in distress role. Here, Pauline is a kid and friend to DK, and they work together as a team on a journey to the very center of the planet. It reminded me of Banjo-Kazooie's unique duo-based gameplay. Donkey Kongs uses his tremendous strength to smash walls and objects to dig and uncover bananas and hidden objects and defeat enemies while Pauline utilizes her singing voice. Even better, they progressively get stronger and learn new abilities with skill upgrades you can purchase with Banandium Gems.

This is the first 3D adventure game in the Donkey Kong franchise since Donkey Kong 64. Only this time, thanks to the same crew that gave us Super Mario Odyssey, it was done correctly. Sure, there is some backtracking, but nowhere near as tedious or aggravating, no swapping between five different Kongs in the tag barrel, and no ridiculous number of collectibles to get and keep track of. It was like a dream come true for gamers disappointed in DK64.

The soundtrack is amazing and rich. There's remixed music from the DKC games originally composed by Rare legends Grant Kirkhope and Dave Wise, like Mine Cart Madness, Gangplank Galleon, and the legendary Stickerbush Symphony. They all sounded beautiful!

Finally, there's plenty of characters from DKC thrown in. You can ride Rambi the Rhino in races against Diddy Kong and Dixie Kong, and Cranky Kong will give you Bananium Gems every time you find him in hidden locations. You even encounter classic enemies like Kritters, Neckies, Zingers, Kabooms and even Donkey Kongs arch-nemesis, King K. Rool, as the final boss. It all provided a nice big trip down memory lane for retro gamers who grew with the DKC series in the 90s.

This game was a total blast to play, and anyone who enjoyed Super Mario Odyssey and loves adventure games in general must try this one, because so far, it's the best release on the Switch 2.

While none of the Carnosaur movies were very good, this one makes them look like Jurassic Park. I don't even consider this an actual movie; it's just a pitiful, incoherent, and sloppy mess created from re-used footage on the prequels with barely any original story or setting to speak of.

The film focuses more on the unwanted romantic sub plot between Sheriff Tanner (Eric Roberts) and Barbara (Rocky DeMarco). The dinosaurs hardly even appear. Even when they do, none of the footage is new. It's all recycled footage clumsily put together, showing off the creatures portrayed by horribly outdated foam latex and rubber suits or puppets.

While the prequels had some decent characters here and there, like Monk and Reed in Carnosaur 2. But here, all the characters are all lame, cardboard cut-outs. All of the acting and dialogue are atrocious and wooden. Eric Roberts couldn't save this film especially so long after his peak in the 80s. He must have been desperate for a paycheck to sign on for this dumpster fire.

Finally, the biggest flaw: recycled footage. I guess the budget was so tight, they couldn't afford to make enough original footage for a full-length picture. They even dressed up some of the nameless extras in outfits only vaguely similar to victims in the prequels. We see some guy named Benny who is obviously substituted with Moses from the second movie, then we got Karen in place of Rawlins as she's killed, and finally Dr. Hyde (Corbin Bernsen) is one of the rescuers. And you wouldn't even have to watch the prequels to tell, because they're clearly being played by different actors in different locations. It was so obvious and laughably bad, I find it insulting the director thought it would fool anyone, especially viewers who already saw the prequels.

Essentially, this movie is like three separate turds mushed together into one big turd that's almost unwatchable, so stay away from it.