Even in black and white, a pedestrian mis(t)fire

Rating: 4/10 (27 October 2009)

The one possibly distinctive thing about The Mist was shot down by the studio and can only be seen on the 2-DVD set: a black and white version. What looks like smog in the color version takes on a silvery menace of nothingness in black and white, and Darabont's intention here-- basically to make a Twilight Zone episode-- becomes clear and, at times, visually effective. Nevertheless, this is a misfire which owes most of its flaws to King's original story, but is not helped by Darabont's flat, unconvincing direction, which desperately needs a touch of Cloverfield-era rawness to transcend its TV movie feel.
The blue collar locals are caricatured as dimwits who are more or less instant prey for a religious nutcase; and possibilities for dramatic tension between characters with reasonable opposing views are tossed away (the most intelligent opponent of the hero is done away with quickly). Virtually all the speaking characters quickly wind up in the hero's camp (even though we've seen little reason in their characters why they're all so rationalist and others aren't)-- yet the logic or necessity of the hero's choices are not at all clear.
All that could be forgiven if the movie was... scary! Here we have to start with blame for King-- it's a real letdown that a mist that could have contained anything turns out mainly to have giant rubber bugs in it. The menace of the mist dissipates the moment we first see CGI tentacles. Add in the explanation eventually given for what's going on and this is Lovecraft Lite without a real sense of bottomless awfulness hiding in the Mist.