All Work And No Play Make Stanley Bad Director!

Rating: Null/10 (25 July 2002)

Enough of the crap already! Puleeze! Let's face it, Kubrick fans this version of the Shining is pure and simple crap! Doodoo, Kaka, s**t. Your exalted, genius director of perfection really misfired on this one.Don't give me this bulls**t that that we don't understand his genius in movie making.He blew it on the shining. Am I saying Kubrick is a bad director. No. Only on this picture. He has had some great films and I have enjoyed them. This is one of the exceptions. You Kubrick fans come off as sycophants who feel you genius can do no wrong here. You need to get out of your Kubrick enduced trances and put down the Kubrick Kool-aid, this movie doesn't even resemble the book. Oh, yeah the characters and the hotel's name is the same, but little else is. First of all, some of you critics say that Stephen King didn't like this movie because he had wrote the book and that he was too close. Well Kubrick made the movie so wouldn't any of his ideas he put into it make him too close to it as well? Kubrick's major problem is that he doesn't seem to have a grasp on good and evil. That does play a factor in the Shining. In the book anyways. Secondly it's a little hard to take Jack Nicholson serious as a mad slipping into madness after playing a character who was in a mental hospital in One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest. What in the hell is wrong with a director who has one of his characters talking to his finger in the mirror as an imaginary friend? Couldn't they afford the money to have an actor play the imaginary friend. That was totally stupid. Then again, you Kubrick groupies are convinced that is genius. It takes all kinds I guess. You can say the Kubrick's version is loosely based on the book. Hell, I'd say very loosely. It is so loosely the damn thing collapses under Kubrick's ego. Where is the details of the book it was supposed to be based on? You Kubrick fans just can't admit, you genius icon who can do no wrong made a piece of celluloid manure. Face it, this is one of his worst movies. Not only is the movie miscast, it is misdirected. Kubrick was the wrong man for the task. Spielberg, Wise or Carpenter might have been a better fit for this movie. They at least have had track records with horror/ fantasy. Can any of you Kubrick sycophants really tell me with a straight face that a movie that deviates from the book on a major scale is better than one that follows the book? get real. Your letting your infatuation with director blind your judgement. Face it this movie, this version of The Shining sucks. This version should be flushed, great director or not. I laughed more than I was scared.Even the greats screw up now and then. If you want to see a good Shining rent the 1997 mini series. It's a hell of a lot closer to the book. This is major crap and should be flushed!