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To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from this movie but, since I have a weak spot for Milla Jovovich and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, I’m glad that after more than 20 years, Paul W.S. Anderson and Milla Jovovich are still get along as a couple and still make movies together but, dear God, their stuff is just so boring though. For Anderson, it was yet another video-game adaptation and I have to admit that I had never heard of this game before watching this movie. I did some digging and the game did look pretty neat and, right there, I could spot the first huge mistake they made with this adaptation. Indeed, the game was taking place in some fantasy world in which you are fighting some huge monsters. However, for some reason, this movie started in our world with some US ranger played by Jovovich who went through some portal to end up in this fantasy world which was such a lame generic approach. To make things worse, she didn’t come alone and ended up in this desert with her squad whose members were all so boring. It was especially hilarious with the lovely Meagan Good who was probably the least convincing soldier I have seen with her makeup and fake eyelashes. The fact that they all got killed fairly early on made this whole approach ever more pointless. I have to admit that, when the movie finally focused on Milla Jovovich and Tony Jaa, it was still not great but, at least, it was watchable. I did like that they were never able to really communicate since they didn’t speak the same language. Unfortunately, this decent duo was ruined as, for the final act, they then brought back Tony Jaa’s team who were just as underwhelming as the US soldiers at the beginning (they tried to explain why they let him rot in this forsaken desert but it was hardly convincing). Of course, one of them played by Ron Perlman somehow spoke English better than I do so they could easily explain everything to Jovovich’s character and the viewers which finally ruined any shred of (slightly) interesting mystery left about this strange world. Even though they hoped to launch another franchise like they did with ‘Resident Evil’, this movie was a flop so the idea was dropped but I don’t think we will miss anything. Anyway, to conclude, even if I have seen worse, the damned thing was pretty lame and I don’t think it is really worth a look.
5/10
