Friday, April 4, 2008

Movie review: The Ruins

By Alex Bentley

The Ruins

"The Ruins" follows a group of friends who become entangled in a brutal struggle for survival after visiting a remote archaeological dig in the Mexican jungle - where they discover something deadly living among the ruins.

Source: Cinema Source

• Showtimes and more on The Ruins

It’s been a common refrain since virtually the beginning of cinema: “The book was better than the movie.” Adaptations of novels all face the same criticism, with a rare few exceptions such as Gone With the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Godfather (among others). This is because it’s nearly impossible to imbue a film with the amount of detail that a book can go into. That’s not going to stop people from complaining that their favorite character or section is missing, of course, but it does show that one should take film adaptations of books with a grain of salt.

A prime example is The Ruins. Based on Scott Smith’s thriller from last year, the film is like the book on speed (but it has the author’s blessing because, well, he wrote the screenplay). In this case, however, it’s easy to understand why the action is fast-forwarded. The book told a slow-building story of four college students (played by Jonathan Tucker, Jena Malone, Shawn Ashmore, and Laura Ramsey) on a Mexican vacation who decide to go visit an archaeological dig (a.k.a. The Ruins) after meeting up with Mathias (Joe Anderson), whose brother had already been there for a few days.

Things aren't going so well.

The book took its time getting to the ruins; the film, though, gets there within the first 20 minutes. Likewise, the book gradually anted up the terror after the fivesome becomes trapped on the pyramid of ruins when Mayan natives surround them. The film wastes no time in establishing exactly why the group is trapped (hint: check the foliage) and in showing them deteriorate one by one. In doing so, the film hits all the high points (or low, depending on your perspective) and has no qualms pushing the gore levels higher and higher, which actually fits with what the book described.

What the movie never conveys, through no real fault of its own, is how palpable the fear is among the group as they see each of their members worsen day after day after day. The movie seems to condense the plot to about three days. This actually may not be much shorter than what the book depicts, but it doesn’t allow the film to give any true connection to the emotions the characters are supposed to be feeling.

Jonathan Tucker giving his most intense look; the plants, meanwhile, just sit there (or do they?).

The film also fails when it decides to include some unnecessary explanations for what the real danger the group is facing is, some silly illustrations of the manifestation of that danger, and a random T&A shot because, well, why the hell not? It’s here that the line between writer and director/producer can probably be drawn; there’s a decent chance that Scott Smith had no say in these things and that director Carter Smith and the producers of the film put those elements in to dumb things down for the masses.

The Ruins is neither a great film nor a particularly bad one. It’ll give horror fans their requisite dose of blood and gore, but very little on the suspense side. Fans of the book will likely be displeased (especially with the ending), but, hey, what else is new?

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• Arts > Movies / Film > Mainstream Movies