John Crichton said:
Yes, spoil away. There is no way I am seeing it in the theater.
I'll try to put down as much as I can remember before I successfully block it out of my mind.
The film opens with a long crawl and exposition infodump abou this native american tribe called the Abwanio or something like that, though despite being 'native america' they're found all over the world. Or at least they deal with and go to everyplace. They are some super-advanced civilization, like Atlantis. Anyway, they do what all hyper-advanced civilizations at the dawn of time do, and mess with something they should not have. There are apparently two worlds, one light and one dark, They open the doorway into the dark one for reasons unnamed. They vanish from the Earth and only their artifacts remain, all over the planet.
Slater is Edward Carnby (and where have I heard that name or one like it before? I swear I have). He is an ex-agent of a government section called 713, that deals with the paranormal. He's found an Abwani artifact and is, I think taking it to his friend Aline. An assassin is waiting for him, though, and tries to kill him. Half-way through the fight it becomes apparent that the assassin is not human, as he takes four or five bullets from Carnby and doesn't flinch, though being flipped onto a sharp object does him in. (This seems pretty stupid until later, which is one of the only plot points to hang together).
Carnby was one of 20 orphans, who were all being experimented on by Hudgens, who bullies the orphanage owner into letting him take the kids. She has some stake in this, but what it is is never revealed. He tells her what he's doing will save thousands, so maybe she thinks they're being subjected to drug trials. Who knows.
Anyway, Carnby escapes and hides in one of these electrical housing units (he's about 8 at this point). Apparently, he then never returns to the orphanage because they never find him. Or something. Anyway.
Hudgens (who, BTW is Aline's boss) has been looking for this other Abwani artifact thing out in the middle of the ocean. They raise the big gold chest up (gold apparently stops these things, or imprisons them - so do several other metals but all of those are even rarer than gold I think. They list the atomic numbers, which unfortunately stops just before the vastly cheaper lead. Anyway, this is the reason mankind values gold so much and why it's always been associated with burial customs; it's a holdover memory from the Abwani days. Not a bad little idea.)
Hudgens has, unfortunately, trusted the wrong ship captain who, when he sees the thing is made of gold, is detemined to open it after they dock. Hudgens is subdued and thrown in a small room. In an uncharacteristic move of
sense on the part of a horror movie character, he knows what those idiots are going to do,
barricades himself in the room and jams the hatch from his side so nothing can get it. This is a wise move. Ten minutes after opening the chest, he's the only person alive on the ship. He retrieves his little artifact thing from the chest and leaves.
So, now we know Hudgens is crooked but no-one else does.
Oh, and when the chest was opened, all the 'sleeper' people, all the former kids from the orphanage, got glassy eyed and walked away from whatever they were doing. We see them later.
Meanwhile, Carnby meets with a bud of his in 713. Said buddy is one of the scientists, who gets a look at the assassin who tried to kill Carnby anyway. Assassin guy has this.. thing attached to his spinal column and when he got thrown on the spike it was bisected. Good point on explanation there. Scanner then shows that, surprise, Carnby has one of these things in him as well. But aha, he was 'electrocuted' when he was a kid, which must have killed the thing. Um, OK. At least he was peripherally near electricity in his flashback.
Most importantly, 713 has known about these things for a couple years now and has created special ammo to deal with them.
Meanwhile Carnby and Aline have had a stormy reunion, then they get down to business. She looks at the artifact, as well as a couple other things Hudgens has sent but didn't want anyone else to open. They monkey around with things, then the lights start going all weird, blinking on and off. The security guard, who is apparently really good buddies with both Aline and Carnby, goes off to investigate and gets a tail spike through the head for his troubles.
Yes, the creature from the boat is now here, and looking for one or more of the artifacts I think. Certainly not the one that Hudgens took, so why it's here I don't know. Anyway, we see it can partiall shift in and out of phase and it's a really bad-ass thing. It blows through walls and stuff like they don't exist but it's actually kinda clumsy, like a big armorplated missle with teeth. A door with a window stops it, though, while Carnby and Aline get out another way. Carnby later shoots it with some of the special ammo and it practically disintergrates.
Then 713 troops show up and show that Boll has seen those cool 'troops crashing through skylights' shots one too many times, 'cause you'll see them do this like four more times. Anyway, they stop another of the monsters by shooting the living crap out of it. Dorff is the leader of the troops, apparently a job Carnby once had (?) and they don't like each other much at all, Dorff even less since he has a dozen armed men to back him up now. Carnby steals Dorff's ID badge thing.
Um, things get a bit confusing then for me. A few jumps of logic and such and they know about Hudgens, or at least that Hudgens is up to No Good. There is a scene where Aline comes to Carnby and has an awkward love scene with him, laying down beside him despite the fact that he's keyed up that someone is going to break in and kill him at any moment but, hey, he needed sleep. Anyway.
People show up at Carnby's to kill him, and they are some of his old buddies from the orphanage. 713 somehow shows up and blows them to bits, but not before they kill a few of the troops. Perhaps they need more body armor than the laser tag/skate punk stuff they're wearing now, but that's beside the point.
Anyway, now it's a race to get to Hudgens before he can do... whatever it was he was going to do, since he can't do what he needs to do without the artifact that Carnby currently has. Since his zombieesque minions failed to get it, Hudgens is out of luck. But, Carnby and the rest are on the way to his lair, conviniently carrying along the very thing Hudgens needs. Whatever. By now it's apparent that this train wreck isn't going to make any damn sense.
Um, sometime in here, Hudgens visits Carnby's buddy from 713, kills the man's wife, then drops a worm-like parasite down his throat. His eyes go all milky and it's apparent that he's joined The Other Side now. Now, why Hudgens doesn't use these things to take over people in 713, or whatever, we never find out. Also, Hudgens has one of these uber monsters in a cage in his lab at the museum, which he pokes with a long-arm syringe to get it's blood. he injects this into himself, and obviously has been doing do for a long time. Why? We never find out.
Hudgens' base is in an abandoned gold mine. It was investigated years ago (gasp, by Hudgens when he was an agent, and certified 'clean' of paranormal activity. It's very near the orphanage.
Dorff, Carnby, Aline and a redshirt descend into the mine while the entire active force of 713 deploys outside the mine. A generator from the mine provides light for them to hold the creatures back. Since the creatures cause electronics to go nuts, this seems less than a good idea but whatever.
The group descends into the mines. Meanwhile, worm-infested buddy destroys himself and the critical generator. Here come the hoarde of creatures, racing past Hudgens as he glares at the fools who would destroy his life's work.
Traps and stuff claim the life of the two redshirts that came with the heroes, and now they are at the mysterious lab. All these child-sized pallets are here, including one for Carnby. Vague memories trouble him. Blach blah. They look at the door. it's obvious that the artifact they have is a key, so they put it in the door. Aline says 'Some doors were not meant to be opened' and they go 'Oh, right' and start to leave. Then Hudgens, who has apparently made his way passed all the carnage and gunfire outside (apparently all that special creature-disintergrating ammo only works in Carnby's gun or something 'cause it sure isn't doing them any good), appears and theatens them with a machinegun. They drop their guns and he says that they don't have the compelte artifact anyway. He has the last peice. He puts it in the key, which turns all gold, and he puts it in the lock and opens the door.
Dorff throws a knife and kills Hudgens, then they all step to the door they were not going to open a second before and look beyond it. A huge cavern, filled to the brim with the shadow creatures. They see the light as the heroes just keep standing the hell there, awestruck by the terrible majesty of the place or something, and start pouring for the door.
The heroes decide to get out while the getting is good and run. They can't close the door again, so they drop the steel shutter that Hudgens used to conceal the thing in the first place. The bomb they set there (huh?) doesn't go off, so Dorff heroically goes back to make sure it goes off. He raises the steel shutters again, then sets off the bomb.
At least there is no 'outrunning fire' scene, since Carnby and Aline have gotten to safety through a tunnel. Which comes out in the storm cellar of the orphanage.
"They were under us the whole time!"
They go inside the orphanage, which is suspiciously empty of children. When they were there before, the place was crawling with kids. The old nun that ran the place is laying dead on the floor of the dormitory, surrounded by empty beds. Huh?
They go back to The City. A little thing on the screen says 'City Evacuated'. They roam the streets for a bit, seeing no people at all, though there are a few cars abandonded in the middle of the street. Camera pulls back for long view of empty streets, or at least the same shot we had a few times before, showing the city from above, with parked cars and stuff. Voice over from Carnby about how the Abwani had to pay the price for opening the door to the world of the dark. Then the camera does an 'Evil Dead' swoop towards Carnby anad Aline; Carnby turns to the camera, horror and shock on his face. Go to black and cue horrible hard rock credits crawl.
The end.
Thank God.
