Visually interesting, but little more.

Rating: Null/10 (5 February 2000)

I have to wonder why this film has so many fierce defenders. All we have in this film is a great premise, a series of often outstanding visuals tacked on to an anorexic story, and some fine actors struggling mightily against the retarded dialogue they were given. If Stanley Kubrick had spent even half the time on his screenplay as he did planning his camera movements, this film might be worthy of the praise it receives.
There is plenty to like about the film: the music is effective throughout, and the sets of the Overlook Hotel are simply incredible -- of course, Kubrick uses them to his full advantage, moving the camera slowly through them to heighten the impact and size of the place. There are many visual images which stand out: the blood gushing from the elevator door and flooding the hallway, Danny riding his big wheel through the enormous, empty hotel, the typed pages Wendy comes across, Jack Torrance attacking the door with an ax and then looking through the hole with his famous grin, and of course the film's final image of Jack is one that is tough to forget. Kubrick never failed to deliver a visually interesting film.
About the acting: I love Jack Nicholson, and he was very good in "The Shining," but he was miscast as Jack Torrance. Why? Because he always plays the crazy/weirdo guy, and the audience knew this going in. One cannot buy Nicholson as a normal guy in this or any film, so when he becomes crazy it has little effect. This takes a lot of wind out of the movie's sails. Shelley Duvall spent too much time whimpering, but considering that this is what she was asked to do I thought she was very good. Danny Lloyd was OK as Danny Torrance, although I thought Courtland Mead in the TV version did a better job (for those who insist that a six-year-old kid can't be that articulate or intelligent, try spending some time with one...). Scatman Crothers was great and underused as Hallorann.
The thing that really gets me about this movie is when I read or hear people say that it is a metaphor for religion or child abuse or racism or jaywalking or whatever core value you prefer. It seems that Kubrick's fans believe that since he made the thing, it has to have some sort of deep, spiritual meaning and structure. Wrong! He read (skimmed through?) King's book, liked the idea of a family imprisoned in a haunted hotel, and decided to make a movie about it... it's that simple. Whether Kubrick understood what King's book was about is irrelevant -- if you've read the book, you can easily see why King doesn't like Kubrick's movie, but the plain fact is that Kubrick never set out to make "Stephen King's The Shining." King fans (and King himself) have the TV miniseries for that, and Kubrick fans should lay off it; it's pretty good, not nearly as visually fun (or as "scary") but the characters are infinitely more interesting and human than they are in Kubrick's film. If Kubrick ever made a popcorn flick, "The Shining" is it.
The bottom line is that Kubrick wanted to make a horror movie, but had no idea how to do it. "Do I make a ghost story or a slasher flick? Is it about going insane or having ESP? Is it about the supernatural or getting lost in some hedges? Can I put in something about Indian burial grounds? And where do I squeeze in the obligatory scene with the cobwebby skeletons in old dressy clothes?" He had no idea, so he threw in a bit of everything, and the result is predictably uneven. It is only Stanley Kubrick's undeniable talent as a director, a big name in a starring role, and the Overlook Hotel itself that separate "The Shining" from any number of average horror movies. "The Shining" is little more than a "B" horror flick with an "A+" director.