Stephen King's The Mist (2007)
Starring: Thomas Jane, Andre Braugher, Laurie Holden, Amin Joseph, Frances Sternhagen, Alexa Davalos, Sam Witwer, Jeff DeMunn, Brian Libby, Marcia Gay Harden, Toby Jones
Director: Frank Darabont
Rated: R for violence, terror and gore, and language
U.S. Opening Date: 21 November 2007
There are no cheap thrills in the Mist that make you jump out of your seat . The Mist deals with serious issues like politics and religion and about how fear can cause people to believe anything.It's also a doomsday thriller. Unfortunately it is burdened by a dialogue-heavy pace; when something weird will happen several haracters will spend the next 10 minutes discussing the event. And much of the dialogue is campy and/or cheesy, or just plain stupid.
One of the first images you'll see in "The Mist" is a movie poster of John Carpenter's "The Thing." That 1982 classic which also tried to be intelligent while at the same time filled with a growing paranoia and a good amount of gore. The mist falls way short of that film.
And then the conclusion.... I will not give it away at all, but I'll comment on it in this articles conclusion.
Plot
The plot is rather simple. On the morning after a hurricane hits a a small East Coast town artist David Drayton (Thomas Jane) and his son (Nathan Gamble) decide to head into town to get some groceries and supplies to fix up their busted house.when everyday citizen Dan Miller(Jeffrey DeMunn) runs into the supermarket yelling, "There’s something in the mist!" A strange, all-encompassing gray mist proceeds to swoop in and cover the entire town, forcing David and many others to take shelter inside the supermarket Soon, giant eel-like tentacles slip under the loading-dock door and drag away Norm the bag boy, ( a good scene filled with interesting male competitiveness) unbelievably only Drayton and three others witness, and no one in the store hears. The witnesses have to convince the other shoppers of their peril. (It's also unrealistic that the Mist didn't attempt to come in when it had the chance.)
Grocery-shopping religious zealot Mrs. Carmody(Marcia Gay Harden) preaches to her fellow shoppers how the mist represents the time of judgment(not to mention how God’s will demands blood), as human casualties rise, supermarket civilians begin listening to Carmody’s preaching. Now, Drayton must decide which group rests as a bigger threat to his son: violent mist or religious fanatics.
So, there you have it: the set-up. an elaborate monster in the house type of film. "The Mist" raises the inevitable question of who the real monsters are.
ACTORS
Thomas Jane plays the ever-resourceful David and is easy to root for, a hansom-wholesome man of action and a sensitive artist.
Marcia Gay Harden plays the religious extremist who whips up the crowd with her fire-and-brimstone denunciations and shrieks "Now do you believe?!" Is harder to root for or like or find very believable as a character. Not the actresses fault -rather the script.
The actor Toby Jones ( who played the lead character of Truman Capote in the movie Infamouse (2006) )plays the runtish but resourceful grocery checker very well.
Jeffrey DeMunn, is an actor who has been in all of Darabont's films plays a rational man, rationally. Nothing stand out in the role - his presence just adding that sense of continuity for film buffs and fans of Darabont.
About the director
Frank Darabont was born in a refugee camp in 1959 in Montbeliard, France, the son of Hungarian parents who had fled Budapest during the failed 1956 Hungarian revolution. Brought to America as an infant, he settled with his family in Los Angeles and attended Hollywood High School. His first job in movies was as a production assistant on the 1981 low-budget film, Hell Night (1981), starring Linda Blair.
In 1977 Steven King sold a 23-year-old Darabont the rights—for all of one dollar—to an old story, The Woman in the Room. The short film that followed was Darabont's ticket to Hollywood.
Darabont is one of only six filmmakers in history with the unique distinction of having his first two feature films receive nominations for the Best Picture Academy Award: 1994's The Shawshank Redemption (1994) (with a total of seven nominations) and 1999's The Green Mile (1999) (four nominations). Darabont himself collected Oscar nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay for each film (both based on works by Stephen King)
The Mist based on King's 27 years old novella, is the shortest recent movie Darabont has made, (and it's still too long).
Conclusion
The Mist" contains intense moments but it is slowed down too much by bad dialog.
And about the conclusion.... Darabont abruptly abandons Steven King's text in the movie's final minutes. I think Darabont should have kept the original ending, and instead taken the time to update the dialogue which comes almost verbatim from the 27 year old original text.
And though this has no bearing on the movie and is just a piece of trivia, the last word in King's story was "hope,".
Official Site:http://www.themist-movie.com/
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