Okay, Stanley Kubrick is a better director than most, but........

Rating: 4/10 (2 June 2005)

I've never understood why everybody thinks Stanley Kubrick's movies are the best thing since sliced bread. Though I loved Clockwork Orange, and I thought a couple of his other films were okay, I don't think he's worthy of the slobbering worship he tends to get.
While I'll grant to Stephen King's detractors that he isn't the most sophisticated writer in the world (there are only so many books about writers that take place in Maine that one can stand, correct?), however, he knows his genre well, and knows how to touch your deepest sense of foreboding. The Shining wasn't anywhere near close to his best work, but the novel was LIGHT YEARS better than this movie.
I wasn't going to bother with the mini-series remake of this flick, because I've felt that when Stephen King puts his sticky fingers on film adaptations of his books, he ruins them (there are perhaps 4 exceptions)...but I wanted to see Steven Weber go from his goofy Brian Hackett persona on the sitcom "Wings" to Jack Torrance. I was thrilled. The mini-series was far superior to the crap version that Kubrick produced for the big screen.
Maybe it isn't so much Kubrick's directing skills (I like the way shots are set up, I like the contrasts...his style really is maverick), perhaps it's his screen writing skills that should be called into question. He had a hand in development of the screenplay for the majority of his movies...maybe that's where it all breaks down.
Kubrick's the Shining was marginally average. By no means brilliant, and certainly not scary in any way, shape or form (not to mention a far cry from King's book of the same name), the acting didn't impress me a whole lot (don't even get me started on Jack Nicholson - who plays the exact same character in every bloody thing he does...though I must admit that I liked Chinatown). Its saving grace was Kubrick's directing style (if not his directing talent, per se), and a pretty original bent by King on the typical yawn of a ghost story upon which Kubrick loosely based the movie.
4 stars, 5 yawns...
Take my advice: if you haven't read the book yet, read that first, then rent the TV mini-series, THEN rent this one. But don't expect to be scared, not even mildly. At most you'll probably just be annoyed that you wasted one of your Netflix choices on this clunker.