Yet Another Misguided Stephen King Adaptation...

Rating: 4/10 (29 November 2007)

There's always certain characteristics in a Stephen King adaptation that never seem to change. For one thing, you can always count on a decent story and on top of that, you typically develop some emotional concern for the protagonists along the way. The Mist doesn't veer from those characteristics. And, while I haven't actually read Stephen King's novella, I'm sure I would enjoy it after seeing the film adaptation. As a whole, however, I really didn't like the film at all. I really thought the screenplay was amateur and hokey, when it clearly wasn't trying to be. The film really wanted to be intelligent and even eminent, I think. I mean, the underlying morals and lessons are all too important and certainly a bit urgent, given the world we live in currently. But with the dialogue so badly written, I really can't give it the benefit of the doubt.
At first I thought it was the acting, but after some deliberation, I've come to terms with the fact that it's completely the fault of the writers. The circumstances and logical conclusion the characters come to in certain key instances really seem flawed and misguided. There's nothing more irritating than watching characters in films who are clearly supposed to be logical and reasonable, make illogical and unreasonable decisions, even though the film seems to think they made the right decisions. I'm not sure if any of that really makes any sense, but the bottom line is there's a fine line between creating a character who makes mistakes and a character who makes mistakes but those mistakes are totally ignored by all other characters, circumstances in the film and the film itself.
And for those of you who have seen it--or if you haven't, take a second look at this after you have--I suppose you think I'm mostly talking about the ending. But I'm not because the ending works. It doesn't matter what I would do or you would do, or what the right thing to do is done. That's not what's important. What's important is whether what was actually done is believable, or not. In this case, the ending was believable. I believed all the characters involved in the final climatic scene were truly to that point. Would I have made that decision? Probably not. But the fact that they did didn't brush me the wrong way whatsoever. It was a shock and I was certainly surprised, but it worked really well and I think without that final scene, the film would have been a complete flop. So, I suppose it goes without saying, if the mistakes and/or illogical or unreasonable decisions are ignored, the film simply doesn't work (and there are a lot of points in the film that I feel didn't work for this very reason); but on the other hand, if the mistakes are acknowledged, then the film generally works because of it. By and large, this film just didn't work for me.