FarCry

Far Cry (2008)

A scientist named Krieger has set up shop on an island off the coast of the United States. He is doing genetic testing on behalf of the military in an effort to develop a super solider. In many ways Krieger succeeds beyond anyone’s expectations as he develops a soldier that is a merciless killing machine that is nearly bullet proof (a shot to the eyes and mouth still kills them). But his methods of choosing and testing his “subjects” aren’t even close to being ethical, so one of his hired guards starts to talk to his niece, Valerie. Sensing a story (Valerie is a reporter) she heads off to the island on the boat of her uncle’s friend, a former solider himself, Jack Carver. One thing leads to another and of course Jack has to do battle with an island full of mercenaries and super soldiers.

Okay lets be honest here. This is another video game adaptations from one of the directors that fans take pleasure in disliking, Uwe Boll. But lets be entirely honest here, shall we? This is an adaptation of a video game where you run around shooting and killing progressively more difficult enemies until you either fail or win the game. So when the movie version is really nothing more than the characters running around the island going from one fight to another not only am I not disappointed, but in fact it seems like a fairly accurate adaptation.

The big question is if this makes for a good movie. There are some pacing issues with the movie. It starts off with a bang as we get to see the experiment live tested on some unfortunate guards. This is pretty cool stuff, but then the movie introduces and establishes the characters. This is the weakest and slowest part of the movie. The characters aren’t terribly interesting and they have no real depth. I also thought the dialogue was just a bit off. Some of the lines were awkwardly written and the scenes just didn’t work for me. But then the Jack and Valerie characters get to the island and the action starts again. From here on out we are given a steady stream of car chases, gunfights, super soldiers, and evil scientists getting their comeuppance.

The cast is filled with familiar faces. Udo Kier plays Krieger in a deadpan through most of the movie, never really showing much emotion. But then I guess that is how he plays most of the characters I’ve seen him play in the last 5 or 10 years. Fans might also recognize Ralf Moeller as uncle Max. I sort of wish that Moeller had been given more to do, since I think he is a far better actor than Til Schweiger, who plays the lead role of Jack. The guy has zero on screen chemistry with his lead actress and all attempts at him trying to drop a cool action movie line fails. He just doesn’t have any charisma, which kind of kills some of the fun.

I guess for me Far Cry boils down to a movie that works well during the action sequences and doesn’t work when it spends time with the characters. Looking at my notes I actually have written in there that the movie reminds me of a mediocre 80s action flick. I think that is pretty accurate, though I’m sure some people will take great pleasure in tearing this apart and calling it the “worst movie ever” because of it’s director. Not really fair, but welcome to the Internet.

2 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer