Compelling, but nothing new...

Rating: 5/10 (1 December 2007)

A storm wreaks havoc on a small north-eastern community. The following morning, after he inspects the damage, David Drayton (Thomas Jane) and his son (Nathan Gamble) go into town to purchase some essentials only to find themselves held captive by a menacing mist teaming with all sorts of slithering nasties, flying uglies, and creepy crawlies.
There is nothing unique about "The Mist". The film is "Jumanji" meets "The Fog". Let's see... we've got our military experiments gone awry along with Stephen King-typical religious fanatics and small town hicks. Thomas Jane as the main protagonist does a decent job here. However, I was disappointed with the fragmented and haphazard way Andre Braugher's character, the paranoid litigant, was yo-yoed in and out of the film. I was equally disappointed by the idiocy of William Sadler's character, the local yokel simpleton bully, and especially Marcia Gay Harden, who played the part of the religious zealot. I found her as distastefully obnoxious in this film as I did in "Mystic River". Yes, I know she is meant to be obnoxious, but she runs with it all just a bit too far, in my humble opinion.
The only true horror of the film is its ending. I won't rob you of that experience, but be prepared to be unprepared. It is trademark King. Many folks have voiced strong dissatisfaction with the ending, claiming it as nonsensical, too disturbing, leaving them in a sickened and perplexed mood. I suggest that the ending of this film is horror in its purest sense, and horror doesn't have a name, doesn't feel warm and fuzzy, and definitely is void of logic. The ending is also quite congruent in the way King habitually concludes his short stories and novellas. Unfortunately, as is almost always the case with films adapted from King's novels (The Mist was a novella) "The Mist" was an overall flaccid exercise.