Should have been titled "The Test"

Rating: 1/10 (6 April 2008)

Frank Darabont does a masterful job of adapting a Stephen King story into a litmus test for imbeciles. Congratulations if you thought this was a good movie, because you can pretty much derive enjoyment from anything. How about watching 120 minutes of vomiting ostriches? Nah, actually that would be way too entertaining for a good analogy, and certainly far more intelligent. And with better dialogue.
Suspension of disbelief usually takes a good ass-pounding by Hollywood horror movies, but here you have to not only watch a whole grocery store full of idiots behaving in the most implausible ways imaginable (or unimaginable), but you get the added bonus of them being the most spectacular collection of annoying, detestable character clichés ever assembled on screen. Oh yeah, you ALSO get to have them speaking with those quaint Stephen King-trademarked rural Maine colloquialisms that have become soooooo FRIGGING worn out it makes you wish you could travel back in time to convince Doubleday to NOT publish "Carrie."
Most of the time if I disagree with someone about a movie, it's c'est la viewe all have our secret shames of bad movies that we just like for some reason. But The Mist was so moronic, so vacuous, so insultingly devoid of logic or believability in plot, dialogue, motivation, and character, that it's not enough to just criticize the movie. It needs to be personal.
A lot of people complain about the dismal ending. It actually made me cheer. Before the mist even finished rolling in I was rooting for the monsters. My only wish was that Frank Darabont and Stephen King were in the car too, and that there was an ABUNDANCE of ammo.
P.S. This movie getting a 7.6 on IMDb pretty much explains how complete dreck like Full House and Home Improvement ever lasted so long on TV, and how George W. managed to hang around long enough to doom the planet.
And in case the real twist of the movie escaped you, then here's the spoiler: the universe WE live in is THE ACTUAL horrifying "alternate universe!" No, FOR REAL!
Happy drooling, knuckle-draggers!