Puts audience's emotions on strings

Rating: 6/10 (14 December 1999)

The Shawshank Redemption was a great movie - it had some flaws, most prominent of which was its tendency to manipulate emotions, but there was too much good about it for the bad to be glaring.
But in The Green Mile, Shawshank's flaws are amplified. Darabont pretty much maps out how the audience should feel at every point in the movie. He never really gives the audience a chance to decide how they feel on their own. Some scenes more than got their point across, but Darabont continued to draw them out, to make sure that even those that already fell asleep caught his drift.
Which brings me to my other point - I have always had a problem with the MTV-generation of films that cannot stand still, but this film could definitely have stood further editing.
I didn't think the movie stunk. The acting was outstanding (despite Tom Hanks once again playing the nice guy role), and I did appreciate the shots of humor that kept the proceedings slightly more brisk than they should have been. There are some standout scenes as well that perked me up amidst the sloggier parts. In reality, it was just a movie that went too far too often to make the audience gasp. The intentions were great, but the execution too heavy.