Decent, but well below Darabont's standards

Rating: 6/10 (29 October 2011)

Frank Darabont is a director that just really loves his characters, and because of that I figured Stephen King's "The Mist" would be right up his alley. The entire book is about a bunch of people who don't know each other being stuck in the same place for ages, which sorta resembled...hey wait a minute, that IS every Frank Darabont movie. However, "Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile" centered around compelling protagonists and delightfully goofy side characters, while most people in this adaptation of "The Mist" are just boring. Take Marcia Gay Harden's religious fanatic for instance, how does such a bland, one-dimensional character get so much screen time? Thomas Jane isn't really much better though, and he's the freaking lead. It's not all bad however, story-wise "The Mist" definitely has its moments. It's pretty nice how the horror is gradually built up, and it also leads to a true killer of an ending. There's lots of interesting stuff happening, it just doesn't happen to interesting people. When you look at this as a Darabont film, it's disappointing. When you don't, I guess it's not bad.