Good. Fantastic. Awesome...... until the last 5 minutes....

Rating: 9/10 (11 April 2008)

OK!!! I admit I'm a huge Stephen King fan... I read all his books and this 'short story' is one of my favorite, maybe for the catastrophic and dystopia's scenery or for "the last man on Earth" situation!! I was really waiting to see this and finally I decided to do it: I was almost trembling remembering that many, many King's books were horribly adapted to cinema (It, The Dreamcatcher, Pet Sematary and many more) but hoping it would come out something good like The Stand or Carrie or Misery!! All was good, following the book quite literary, all the actors (obviously different from what I imagined) were quite good and 'sets' were really 'real'!! Acting was quite good, not exceptional but has no major flaws, and dialogue were not bas as many say! I said: "Ok, it's a perfect representation of the 'short story'" but, passing the half of this movie, I began to fear for the ending. I said to myself: "All is going too good, they will surely be able to ruin this greatness at the end..."!!! and, obviously it happened!!! one of the greatest point of the original 'short story' is the end. Simply. Truly. No other words. When in the final 10 minutes I began to understand I was right: I had to fear for what came in "moviemakers"' minds... OK for the Pr-final scene (the one in the car) but then... arghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! What happened????????????? what.the.f**k.happens?????? I was left speechless while the credits rolled... what did they do to 'my' finale????? where is the novel left in a gas station, where is the radio transmitting the single word 'hope', where is the sense of abandoning, the 'isolation', the unpredictability of what comes next??? With this finale they were able to make this movie pass from a good post-apocalyptic, dystopia's movie to a simple sad, "oh my god why did I do that?" movie... it was frustrating that such a good book/movie was ruined by this inexplicable and meaningless change of finale: if it was good, fantastic, why the hell changing it with a stupid, ordinary one? I give this a 10 until 5 minutes from the end and -2.000 for the end!!! A tip: watch it, imagine yourselves with these characters, live the story from within their minds but, please, exit from the theater or shut off the DVD player when you are approximately at 1:55...