""We want the boy.""
Stephen King has done it again!!!!!! He took a very general story, and elongated it to become a fast paced thrilling read, and the movie does the same. Though I saw the film prior to reading the book. Still just as good, with the trademark twist ending that film makers have been recently adding to the endings of Stephen King's books.
The story is relatively simple in nature. A great mist pours down from the mountainside of____(Can't recall) and engulfs the town, with people getting eaten by monsters hiding within the mist. A couple dozen or more take shelter in a grocery store and find that they are trapped inside as the monsters unleash attacks on the store. But the deeply religious folk inside prove to be much more scary than the monsters outside.
Frank Darabont did a fantastic job at capturing the overall suspense that the story had, and he never missed a beat! He made sure that the drama was realistic, and that the monsters were real too, or at least the monsters that aren't focused on as much in the film. Though I only gave Frank 4 stars cuz while I haven't seen it a second time, I could tell that I'd not like it as much since this was one of those fast paced suspense thrillers that only does it for you the first time. For having known the story, then re-watching the film could only do so much for you. And reading the book afterwards felt the same way. It's similar to how "Saw" (2004) was thrilling at times, a mind puzzler, but on the second go round, it wasn't as good since you knew everything beat by beat.
Thomas Jane (The Punisher/Dreamcatcher) stars in the lead as (can't remember his name. I saw the film last on opening day, and read it in December, so it's been a while. remind me please, and I'll edit the review.) The man is a father of a young son that he wants to keep calm through the terror unfolding outside the grocery store, and keeps his wits about him the entire time. He's the one who hatches the scheme to escape the store before the crazed religious folk take total control. He ads to the suspense, but the acting was only so-so for me.
Marcia Gay Harden plays____(remind me please). She's the deeply religious character who believes that the coming of the mist is the sign of the end of days as described in the bible, and she quickly rounds up the sane, and quirky people in the grocery store to side with her, and every biblical thing that SHE says MUST be done to avoid a terrible fate. Her control grows throughout the film, and you're routing like mad for her to be killed off, but she just gets more and more powerful. And that is how the "civilized" religious people in the store seem more monstrous than the "uncivilized" monsters outside. Which of course was the overall message of the book, in that the most peaceful and civilized of sorts will be the ones prone to lose their minds much more quickly than the Average Joes of the town.
____(can't remember either) plays Ollie, an employee of the grocery store who is brave, sane, and quickly sides with Jane's character when he observes how crazy Marcia's character is, despite trying to reason with her peacefully. Ollie is further convinced by Jane's plan to escape when he sees that the severed tentacle in the back room looks nothing like the beasts described as arriving in the end of days (if there are supposed to be any monsters at all). You continually route for him throughout the film to triumph over the monsters...but not every wish comes true to perfection.
The drug store scene was probably the creepiest in the whole movie. No music. Just waiting for the giant spiders to strike!!!! It was the most creeped out I've been from a movie in a long time! Kudos to King!!!!!
The special effects were much better than "Dreamcatcher" as the monsters looked much more real and were depicted as being much more aggressive than the ones of that film.
The visuals go along with that, and served the story well. Especially in the drug store scene, and the venturing out into the mist scene in the climax.
Even Stephen himself liked the changed ending and said that if ANYONE revealed the ending prior to the film's opening that they should be killed!!!
Overall, this was a suspenseful movie that keeps your eyes glued to the screen beat per beat, but most likely won't be as entertaining the 2nd time around, hence the 4 star rating instead of 5 star rating.
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