The thing that bothered me the most about Uwe Boll’s direct-to-video stinker Far Cry is that I already saw this film. The year was 1992. the director was Roland Emerich, and the (far better) movie was called Universal Soldier.

Back then, the concept was fresh rather than rehashed, and I actually cared about the characters, who — get this — were developed throughout the film!

But Boll just doesn’t get that kind of subtlety. I’m not sure he even understands how real people interact. Or their motivations. Neither does he get the meaning of “appropriate comic relief.” His Far Cry proves that a stand-in for Jean-Claude Van Damme, a cute girl with a perky butt, some exploding boats, and zombies in white makeup are not enough.

In this version, German mad scientist Udo Kier is turning mercs into genetically-modified killing machines without minds or souls of their own. A Seattle newspaper reporter (Emmanuelle Vaugier) finds scraps of information about Kier’s government-subsidized lab, and she rushes to his aid. She hires boat captain (and former special ops) Jack Carver (Jean-Claude Til Schweiger) to raid the island where he informant uncle disappeared.

For the record, Kier’s face in the above picture perfectly sums up how I felt watching the damn thing unfold.

This shitgeist leaves me asking several questions:

1) You’ve got to wonder which of the starry-eyed cast members signed on to Far Cry thinking, “Hey, this is the one that will make me famous!”

In Movies You Should See episode 203, the gang talked about how to spot a bad movie. I’d like to add my own criterion to their list: If you recognize several actors, especially from television, but they’re such small fish that you can’t name them, then you are watching a bad movie.

Let’s take a look, shall we?

Schweiger’s suffered the shame of Deuce Bigalow: European Gigalow, but it wasn’t Far Cry that got his name out there — no, that was this summer’s Inglorious Basterds. Vaugier’s got a slew of Saw movies under her belt, as well as House of the Dead 2. She’s clearly paying the bills. She made it “big” as Charlie Sheen’s love interest, Mia, on Two and a Half Men. Kier’s a Boll survivor after BloodRayne, but he’s got street cred for Ace Ventura, Blade, and Grindhouse. On the other hand, he’s a reknowned B-movie paycheck-casher for projects like End of Days, Dracula 3000, and Barb Wire.

2) Who at Crytek (the game developer that made Far Cry) thought handing over movie rights to god-damned Uwe Boll was the right business move?

I mean, this is the guy who has a zero percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. He’s the guy who tried to pick a fight with Michael Bay. He’s the guy who has an online petition to get him to stop making movies. He’s the guy who’s called himself  “the only genius in the whole fucking [movie] business.”

And there Far Cry sits with a 3.2/10 rating on IMDB. But that’s okay, because Boll keeps insisting it’s brilliant, comparing it in one interview to a James Bond movie. Yet it took me — someone who loves terrible movies — four sittings to complete.

3) When will German lawmakers close the loophole that lets Boll and his investors reap profitable tax write-offs from films that bomb and lose millions?

It’s been theorized that Boll purposely pumps out these failures in order to exploit the topsy-turvy way his nation’s books work — like some sort of real life The Producers. Despite losing $9 million on House of the Dead, $26 million on Alone in the Dark, $21 million on BloodRayne, and $32 million on In the Name of the King, he’s still going and has four more movies in production right now. That’s $88 million he’s lost on just four titles!

Did anything go right?

The “monsters” weren’t scary in the slightest. Chris Coppola’s “food guy” character should have been excised from the film altogether. He’s responsible for the single worst-written-and-delivered line I’ve heard since 1996: “They must do a lot of humping here, because those things breed like rabbits.” (It replaces Arnold Schwarzenegger’s, “You’re luggage,” from Eraser.) It was a bad movie.

I want to find some small point of light in the darkness, though, or else I’ll feel bad. I’ve got to admit that Schweiger’s gymnastic physicality in the final act was worth watching. Some of the establishing shots of the Vancouver coastline were very pretty. And while the rest of the plot was horrid, I enjoyed that our hero didn’t kill the villain at the end; instead, the mad scientist was torn to shreds by his own hubris, cornered by ravening mutant commandos.

That’s not an endorsement. Stay the hell away from Far Cry.

~ Jason