I've played a bunch of the Far Cry games like Far Cry one, two, three and four. They're a really fun series about surviving in the wilderness and stealing people's trucks and killing them which is all sorts of fun. But I'll tell you what isn't fun. Far Cry the movie. It's one of the worst movies I've ever seen in my entire life. So let's find the positives.
So I guess I have to talk about the plot from Far Cry. There is no plot. It's an action movie that's forgettable. Even the craziest generic ‘80s action film has things you remember and you get excited about but this movie is very forgettable. Far Cry the movie is a terrible film made by cinematic auteur Uwe Boll who's notorious for being one of the worst filmmakers in the history of the medium. And not only is he one of the worst filmmakers he happens to have a lot if not most of his films based on really good video games. It’s a crime against these great game franchises. So in Far Cry the game you're Jack Carver, your boat explodes, you go to the island, you're after a journalist, crazy army, okay so they got certain things like that right in the movie. One thing I really hate is that they took the nice tropical location of Far Cry in the original game and turned it into Northern Canada. It took three people to write the script for Far Cry and it's still unintelligible. To be able to even tell you more than a very brief synopsis is near impossible. The funny thing about Far Cry is the movie rights to it were purchased before the game was even done. So who knows what Uwe Boll had even seen of Far Cry before starting on the film. Did he see like a sizzle reel? Concept art? Hear a pitch? However it happened it seems that the only things that they got right were certain bullet points.
There's a lot of problems with the movie but not so many problems that we couldn't find a lot of okay things about it. For one I liked the fact that they actually did use a couple of references to the video game. The one that sticks out in my head the most actually is one of the simplest, throwing rocks to distract enemy soldiers. Used in the game and used in the movie. Another thing that actually stands out is the vehicular combat. See Far Cry wasn't the first game to use that but it used it as a viable action method and now in most first-person shooters they use that same technique. The movie actually did copy that in the boat chase sequence down the river in particular. It was pretty much right out of the game and I do appreciate that. Other than that I don't know how much of the game was even done when he saw it and it shows. But at least those three things are in the film, rocks, a shirt and Jeeps. So positive number one is there's some actual references to the video game. When you watch this movie for the first time you will be floored by how cheap the movie looks. Pretty much every scene is really poorly written, really poorly constructed, really poorly directed, but whenever you get to an action sequence they seem to be kind of okay. And the ending action sequence in particular which has a lot to do with the parkour. It’s not like I’m a huge fan of parkour but it was really well done in this movie. It was very well coordinated and choreographed and it actually looked like the actors were going to be in serious danger if they missed a particular jump or flip. So those elements were fun. So that's okay. The second positive is that this movie has some pretty decent action sequences.
I mean there are so few things in this movie that are good that it was difficult to find the next two positives. And when I say this next one I want you to understand that we're not making a joke here we're being serious. In this movie they use the Far Cry font. And I know a lot of you are probably like that's not a positive! Well I like the Far Cry font. If there's one thing I love about video games it's the fonts! Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Mega Man, all have great fonts. And you know who has great fonts? Far Cry. Far Cry has an awesome font. The one thing that they got dead on was that font in that opening title sequence. And it was straight to hell from there. But the fact that they used the Far Cry font means that they quite literally had to have played the game at some point. By using the Far Cry font it’s proof that they knew the game existed. So positive number three is that the movie uses the Far Cry font. When I watched this film I really didn't feel like there was any threat happening. The evil scientist is not really scary and the soldiers in the movie don't really feel threatening either. In fact a couple of times Jack Carver just kind of took them out easily which was boring. But one thing that did work in the movie was the super soldiers. They were basically unstoppable. They looked very unnatural, scary even, and one thing they did is they color corrected their skin so they're all this gray undead color. It might be a practical makeup job but I think it looks a little too good for that. And the only way to kill them was like a single shot in the eye or the mouth. So unless you're a sure shot military guy you're never going to be able to take them down. They had no moral compass so they just killed everything that was in sight and they seemed authentically threatening. Everyone including the enemies in the movie were scared of these things and I think that made for a really good monster in the movie. So the final positive is authentically scary villains.
If you're a big fan of the Far Cry video games you have to stay away from this film. You may be curious. You may think hey I should watch this. But here's the problem. When you've watched this movie that's about two hours you're never going to get back. Uwe Boll has a bunch of terrible films but this one has to be the worst. And not because it's cheesy but because it's one of the most boring films you'll ever see in his entire career.
May be you are right