Big budget Children of the Corn

Rating: 4/10 (30 March 2008)

The Mist has a great 30 minute intro but then stumbles and falls into Children of the Corn territory. What could have been a suspenseful monster/horror movie becomes a 2 hour exercise in leftist ranting. The Mist makes the same mistake that Tom Cruise' War of the Worlds film did by bogging down the momentum with Tim Robbin's lone unstable character , in the case of The Mist it's a religious lunatic named Mrs. Carmody, whose theology comes from the academy of cult leaders. Since I suspect some viewers (and obviously the filmmakers themselves) believe this to be an accurate and typical portrayal of Christians, since the filmmakers take an extremely serious approach to the story, and since so much time is devoted to this character, I'll offer a few examples to contest this ridiculous stereotype upon which the film has built part of it's real world foundation. For instance, the female David Koresh claims God demands a human sacrifice, to appease him I suppose. Well, here's the problem, the God of the Bible never required human sacrifices period. Remember, God only tested Abraham. Secondly, the gospel describes Jesus as the lamb of God making the ultimate sacrifice once and for all, so that mankind may be saved. By Mrs. Carmody offering up a sacrifice, human or otherwise, it negates the purpose of Jesus having come in the first place.
The Bible that the supermarket psycho so fondly quotes from describes a few of the events leading up to the end times, and if one of them had been a giant bug attack I think odds are it would have rated a mention, yet she comes to this conclusion 60 seconds after the mist appears! A lone biker type tells crackpot Carmody off and is quickly dispatched. Now according to polls, some ninety percent of Americans describe themselves as Christians, so you would think a few of them would be left in the store to point out the rest of the holes in her warped theology. Or maybe we are to assume no one in the store is a Christian since they fail to recognize her rantings as cult minded nonsense, in that case what does this say about the secular part of our society. In any event the small town folk follow like sheep because as we all know, in Hollywood films small town folk are required to be weak minded. The military men in the barricaded store don't fare much better in characterization. They are barely to be found when fortifying the store, much less when the battle begins. Instead we discover the evil military is responsible for this whole mess and rather than stand, fight, and go down swinging in true military fashion they slither away into a dark corner to end their cowardly lives. Only in Hollywood.
Some discussion is given between characters into man's inherent nature as being pretty evil and nasty and in the next breath religion and politics are criticized for their contribution to evil and nastiness. I certainly can't speak to religion and politics in the general sense but as flawed as they are, if the American democratic system and the Judeo Christian religion are responsible for anything its for being a stabilizing force in today's world and also the most charitable anywhere. To suggest we may be better off without them is like offering an anvil to someone whose parachute just failed.
Credit is to be given to performances in this film. I'm sure everyone wishes Andre Braugher had stayed around longer, but in order to stay true to Hollywood film fashion the filmmakers demand that the African American character be among the first to go. Thomas Jane gives a solid performance and is quickly establishing himself as a dependable lead. The rest of the cast perform first rate with what they are given. Creature design is somewhat interesting with the giant Cathula like beast quite effective though little screen time is given to it. The nihilistic ending has received a lot of criticism, but quite frankly, the entire film could be described as such.