Ever Been Cheated?

Rating: 3/10 (26 March 2008)

I was expecting great things from the Mist. As a young boy, the short Stephen King novel was one of those stories that I read time and time again. Even back then, I can remember thinking "This would be great on the screen!!!". OK, admittedly, I knew it would lose some of it's worth when transferred out of the pages and into the box office, but as an already formed idea, it was hard to see how anyone could mess it up. But they did. And oh my, how they messed it up.
From a pretty promising start, The Mist soon descends to the typical book/movie crossover - i.e: Trash. I keep asking myself, how did the director manage to screw this up so badly?
The characters are poorly formed and although the acting is OK, there are times when one feels so infuriated by the character development, it spoils the whole movie. Honestly, I couldn't care less what happened to anyone in the store. And did we really need so much focus on Christian fundamentalism? It's such an over-riding factor in this movie, it almost blurs the rest of the plot. When I watch a movie like The Mist, I want to be frightened, I want to be thrilled, I don't want to be sitting in my seat fighting back the urge to vomit at some pathetically veiled stab at religion. If religion or fundamentalism is a problem for the director, I have a message for him - GO MAKE A MOVIE ABOUT IT. DO NOT USE IT TO SPOIL A GREAT IDEA. YOU WERE GIVEN A GIFT. A SURE THING. YOU DROPPED THE BALL.
Elsewhere, the CGI was OK. Other people may rave about it in this review forum but I really can't say that it was anything that held my attention for too long. Most of the story was true to the original, although again, there were times when the poor character development made you wonder how people got themselves into certain predicaments - for example, people being led out to their certain death with hardly any coaxing.
But then we come to the biggest negative in this movie. The ending. Even if this had been a great movie (which it wasn't), the ending would have destroyed any positivity that came before. Some people may see it as clever, I just see it as a massive cop-out. Not only that, but not even a particularly smart one. Maybe there was a message in there somewhere as some have stated - but the message to me read "Ever Been Cheated? You have now".
All in all, I give The Mist a massive thumbs down. It could have been something great. Really it could have. But instead, it's a mess. I couldn't even recommend it as a popcorn movie - it isn't even mindless entertainment. Just a great idea that became overwhelmed by somebody's misguided urge to try and look smart.