A Wonderful Concept That Ends Up Being Absurd

Rating: 7/10 (5 December 2011)

Note: Before going any further, I did not read the short story this movie is based off. I am only concerned with the story in the movie, and nothing else. Secondly, there be spoilers here....Argh!
The Acting: The cast is half way decent, with familiar faces to King and Darabont films. The acting is generally solid, though interactions between some characters felt hollow, like David and his wife in the beginning (did not portray a believable couple).
The Story: The US Government accidentally allows another dimension to seep into ours, quickly covering the immediate world in a dense mist. In the mist, monsters await the unlucky and foolish. The occupants of a supermarket lock themselves in, and the fear and stress of the situation, eventually peels back the veneer of polite society, revealing the monsters under the skin. Soon a microcosm of humanity is played out in the store.
Cool concept. Unfortunately though, the confines of time in the movie, ultimately bring this story down. The characters emotional stress and reactions to the people and world around them, is too rushed and thus silly. Some examples:
1. The Dan Miller character, played by a King and Darabont favorite, Jeff DeMunn(Green Mile, Storm of the Century, etc.), bursts into the supermarket in the early parts of the movie, warning of danger outside. The occupants reactions to a possible threat outside is normally realistic, but plays out much too quickly. Peoples reactions are normally somewhat slow and ponderous, but in this movie, they all immediately assume that Dan Miller is absolutely correct, and they all immediately start screaming at his entrance into the store with a small bloody nose. The reactions of the people, are too immediate, there is no realistic build up, and thus it comes off as somewhat silly. The way Dan's entrance was played out in the movie, you would have thought he came running in with a monster attached to his back, his eye balls ripped out, and a hole in his chest the size of a basketball.
2. The Jim character, played by William Sadler, is quick to open up about his personal dislike of the main character, only minutes after the supermarket closes itself to the outside world. During a part in the store room of the supermarket, Jim becomes immediately petty and resentful of the main character David, and proceeds to let him know that he doesn't think much of people who have gone to college. This wouldn't have felt unrealistic, if the characters had been stuck in the store for a day or more, scared and stressed out. However, because it happens only minutes after the Dan Miller character enters the store, it comes off as too quick.
There are many more examples of these super quick explosions of emotion, throughout the movie. They would not be out of place, if the story played out over the course of a week or longer. Unfortunately, the movie tries to tell the history of the world in under two hours, and thus everything is super accelerated, with no attempt to make the time in the store seem to go on longer. The events in the story play out in what appears to be two days, had it made it play out over a longer period of time, the reactions of the characters wouldn't be so silly.
Continuing this idea of rushed time, the ending of the movie becomes quite absurd.
The Ending: David, his son, Amanda, Dan, and Irene, are the five characters who manage to flee the store and acquire a mode of transportation. With the intent to get out of the mist, they leave the store and decide to drive as far as the tank of gas in the vehicle will allow them. Ultimately they run out of gas, still within the mist. They sit there for only a few minutes, before it is decided that they will use a gun on themselves. David shoots the other four occupants, but is unable to kill himself as he doesn't have any more bullets. He gets out of the vehicle, obviously distressed, and as he waits for the monsters in the mist to kill him, a horrible surprise appears from the mist. Survivors in the form of the military, complete with guns, tanks, and even a flame thrower.
This couldn't have been a more absurd ending. It was unrealistic, both in the sense of time, and in the sense of the characters. These characters risked life and limb to flee the store, risked it again to get to the vehicle, and further risked it by taking a road trip. They showed a clear drive for survival, but the moment the vehicle ran out of gas, they decided within minutes to kill themselves, rather then try to either: wait in the vehicle for a few hours to see what would happen outside; try to brave the mist to find shelter. The lack of realism should be obvious here.
1. They were survivors. As stated previously, they showed a clear and strong will to live.
2. They did not encounter any problems driving around the world, thereby showing that just because the immediate world was covered in this mist, did not mean it was instant death to be outside in it. If they traveled a hundred miles without being attacked, then clearly the amount of monsters in the mist, was not as dense as the mist itself.
3. Despite the above, they took only minutes to decide that suicide was a better alternative to waiting around in the vehicle, and/or attempting to find safe haven outside of the vehicle. Realistically, coming to the decision to kill yourselves, with all of the above put in perspective, would not have been a five minute conversation.
Grade: 7 out of 10