Brilliant Acting And Directing, With A Totally Anti-human Ending

Rating: 1/10 (8 April 2008)

There is no easy way to comment on a film which is as richly endowed with meaning, nuance, and fine performances as is "The Mist." The casting was nearly impeccable. Thomas Jane is absolutely magnificent as the virile, sensible, loving father and hero of this gory tragedy. The construction of the plot and the pace of the story are also nearly impeccable. The performances of the supporting actors in the many scenes of fear, panic, and pandemonium are all excellent.
What is not excellent is the dreadful, abominable, nasty anti-human ending.
The credibility of this "monsters from another reality" story is handled with such detail, and precision, that the nihilist ending which was seemingly tacked on by a total stranger to the production, was in all senses of the word, PAINFUL. Unbelievable. Dastardly, in fact.
Up to the last few minutes of "The Mist" I was ready to give this flick ten out of ten stars, but the savagely inhuman ending scuppered that notion. And I do mean scuppered, as in torpedoed, sunk, lost without a trace in deep water.
What were the producers, the Weinsteins, thinking ? What was Darabount thinking ? The strong, decisive and heroic father decides to execute his friends, the sexy blonde who can barely contain her yearning and desire for him, even as she knows that his wife has been killed by the monsters ? He kills his own son ? It is nonsensical, no, it is worse than nonsensical, it is anti-human.
The character, the action-oriented hero, so brilliantly crafted by the first 9/10ths of the story collapses at the end, just because the car is out of gas and they can still hear the monsters ? What ?? The way "The Mist" ends is an abomination in modern American film, a dreadful conclusion to an otherwise magnificently played monster epic. It cancels out the sacrifices made by the other characters, the ones that the heroic artist inspired with his unflagging courage !! I hate this film, now, and any respect I had for the screenwriter or the legion of producers who worked on it, evaporated with the bloody end of this monstrous monster drama.
The principals who cooked that up should be pilloried or horse-whipped or maybe forced to watch "Legally Blonde" non-stop over a very long, long week-end. It wasn't the King ending, after all, so it was cooked up by the film's 'auteurs'. Shame on them.