Hi all. Retroplayer here.

Why do I do this to myself? Why do I subject myself to the horrors of Uwe Boll? Oh I know, it’s because I love you all. Yeah, you! Don’t shrug that comment off dear readers. You all rock, every single one of you. Oh by the way, if you fancy dropping me an email to say hello or to suggest a game/movie, you can contact me at denis [at] thegamingliberty.com. Replace [at] with @ of course. It just helps cut back on spam this way. Now, onward.

You best start believing in Uwe Boll TGL reviews, dear readers, you’re in one! Before I watched Far Cry I was a Uwe Boll virgin. I didn’t see any of his stuff despite having an idea of what I was in for. This guy has been critically crucified and castrated on almost every movie he directed. People treat him like a plague to games industry, and a pest to the film industry. His can can’t be that bad, right?… right?

Far Cry opens with a bunch of mercenary dudes getting wasted. By what, it doesn’t show, not yet at least. Whatever it is it’s fast, smart, abnormally powerful, and has vision like a fucking JVC camcorder. This scene, much like the rest of the movie, is exactly what you’d expect. The camera shakes, the mercs get spooked, they shoot in the direction of an unseen noise, the guy at the back gets picked off first, another guy gets picked off, until there’s one left. That last guy dies in the most horrific way out of all of them, naturally. It’s a rule. The camera keeps cutting to the POV of their attacker. Like I said, it’s like it was recorded on an old camcorder- it’s grainy, has lines running through it, and is drowned out of colour. Right before the second last merc gets toasted it cuts to a POV of the attacker directly over a merc. I mean, the camera is literally hovering over him. Unless this unseen creature has fucking wings (which it doesn’t), I think this is pretty impossible. Anyway, after they’re all dead it cuts to the Far Cry logo. I thought it started pretty bad but hoped it picked up a bit. My first mistake.

We then get a glimpse of Jack Carver (Til Schweiger), the hero of Far Cry. I use the term “hero” quite loosely, but lets just go with that for now. He works for a small business that brings tourists out on boat rides. On his boat are a an arguing couple. The woman says, “You promised me whaaaaaales, George!”. The music that accompanies this here is like the music that plays on Seinfeld whenever it cuts to a new scene. And there’s Jack just sitting there in his Hawaiian-styled shit shirt. At this point the film looks and sounds like some kind of zany romantic comedy. I can just imagine the trailer now, complete with the annoying voice over…

*laid back music begins to play* Meet Jack Carver. He’s just a regular guy, with a regular job, and a regular life… until *screeching guitar riff* he meets Valerie Cardinal. *upbeat theme kicks in* Now Jacks boring sea faring life just became all washed up, and his former Special Forces training just came back in style! This summer… learn to laugh again. *brief scene of Jack smiling for the first time in a decade* Learn to love again. *Jack and Valerie embrace each other under a waterfall* Because on July 15th… this movie will be a… Far Cry from anything you’ve ever seen. From the guy who brought you Postal and House of the Dead, comes a comedy with heart, love, and more chuckles than Adam Sandlers funeral. Til Schweiger *clip of Jack reaching into his pants and pulling out a gun* Emmanuelle Vaugier *clip of Valerie cooking hotdogs and pulling a funny face* Far Cry. Rated PG. *Take my breath Away by Berlin plays as the trailer fades out*

The whole scene on the boat is just pointless. The couple keep arguing to the point where it clearly feels like Uwe Boll is just wasting screen time. In fact, I felt this a lot while watching Far Cry. There’s these scenes in movie that are just utterly pointless, and devoid of any real need. It’s like Uwe Boll had to at least get this movie at a running time of 1 hour 30 minutes. A perfect example of this is when Jacks boss needs to contact him. Jacks just offshore in his boat and isn’t responding to his radio. The owners wife says “Are you afraid of him or something? Go tell him!” Then she says, “Fine! I’m getting my gun!”. She walks off screen. His response? “Menopause!” Lovely. This is just another example of time wasting scenes. These scenes drag the movie to a fucking standstill.

Story wise it’s pretty similar to the game. All your basic ingredients are here; Jack brings the reporter to the island, the reporter goes missing, Jack needs to deal with it, and in turn goes up against the result of horrible genetic experiments. However, while the Far Cry movie does loosely follow the game, it does so in a terribly half arsed way. The first most noticeable thing is the setting. In the game the backdrop was a stunningly beautiful tropical island, with white sands, lush forests, and exotic wildlife. In the movie it’s, well, like Canada. It looks like they filmed it on the cheap in Canada, which basically makes it look like an old episode of Stargate: SG1. Everything is just dull, bleak, and uninteresting. In the game Jack almost had to become one with his hostile environment, started to blend in, and in turn learned to become a hunter unless he wanted to be hunted. In the movie Jack kind of just runs from scene to scene. What a load.

30 long, long minutes into the film Jack finally gets to the island. 30 minutes of talking, fucking inane conversations, and basically filler. It’s soul draining, absolutely soul draining. But when he finally gets to the island, the action isn’t exactly thrilling either. After dropping into the water, both Jack and Valerie wash up on shore soaked to the skin. They escape the mercs and find sanctuary in a nearby cabin. Jack turns away as Valerie undresses, after which she climbs into a bed. But old Jack is freezing. He looks at her, “Can I come in?”. “Sure”, she says. ” He starts shivering, “I’m so cold”. Of course, in his thick German accent it sounds more like, “I EM SAH KALD!”. He looks at Valerie and says, “In the military we used to share body heat”. “Like spooning?”, Valarie says. They promptly get it on. Its cuts to the next day as both of them are walking on a dirt road. Jack says, “So how was I?” Stay classy, Uwe, stay classy.

Apart from the fact that the movie is utter shit, the biggest cock-up is the fact that the genetic mishaps on the island and no longer freakish beasts, like they are in the game. If you’re hoping to see some excellent prosthetic work here, or even nice looks CGI creatures, you’ll be disappointed. There’s no fucked up creations here, my boy. Nope. Instead, they’re simply genetically modified soldiers. This means they’re basically dudes painted white. That’s it. Just dudes painted white. When I saw them I wasn’t sure if I was watching Far Cry or Revenge of the Albinos. The fuck am I watching?

Soon enough Jack bumps into Emilio, who is basically the funny guy in the movie. He’s fat, large, loud, and looks like Rosie O Donnell’s long lost malformed twin. His only use in the movie is to make wisecracks. At one point, when handcuffed back-to-back with Jack, he starts playing eye spy. Kill me. Now. I’m sure Uwe intended for him to be the “every guy”, the one character the average viewer can relate to. But no one is this annoying. While Far Cry is a horrendous experience to behold, as soon as Emilio turns up it’s like sitting on a 40 hour plane journey next to a spherical, over talkative, sweaty slob. The animal turns to you every five minutes to tell you about his sex life, favourite baseball team, and dog, as your stomach is just barely holding on for dear life. Who knew this film could get worse?

You’d hope it gets a little better when the final action set piece kicks off, but it doesn’t. The final ten minutes of the film is basically Jack being chased by the super soldiers. The only way they can be killed is from a gunshot through the eye, thanks to their skin being bulletproof, naturally. Thankfully though, Jack is a pretty good shot. This last chunk of the movie takes place outside the military base that is creating the super soldiers, which pretty much looks like a fucking Canadian sawmill. You know, the worst part is that the actors are clearly starved of creativity and direction. I mean, at the very least Til Schweiger, Craig Fairbrass, and Ralf Möller aren’t bad actors, but you can almost feel their frustration of screen. They’re basically starved for direction. It’s like watching a dog with wheels for legs trying to climb a steep hill.

Don’t watch this movie. It’s terrible. It’s like having your teeth pulled, and the teeth holes being filled with vinegar. It loosely sticks by the game, but in turn does a pretty shitty job at it. Watching shit like this makes me truly appreciate the likes of Silent Hill, Doom, and I dare say, Super Mario Bros. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go wash my eyes out with super glue.

Far Cry gets 1 mid-choking Emilio head out of 5.