I'm consistantly torn about how I feel about Stephen King. I spent a good deal of my teenage years readin' the bastard. And Man... he can write. It's not secret that his movies don't really hold up as well as his novels/novella/free-form poetry do. I think that is kind of a testament to how good a writer he is. He gets a sweet premise and sells it to us so well that we neglect to laugh when his lesser ideas get tossed out way. Like aliens causing all the weird crap. Or dimensional rifts and whatnot. We just don't seem to buy those things in films really though. Or maybe it has to do with- Well, I feel like I could be on this subject all day. Either way, Frank Darabont seems to have a good sense of what to do with King's work. If you don't think he does GREAT adaptations, the very least, he does GOOD adaptation. And The Mist belongs up in that arena. It's a good movie. Special effects are decent. The tentacles were a little goofy looking but really, that's it. ALTHOUGH I could have totally used MORE tentacles despite them not looking as good as the insect monsters and the giant vague beasts that roam the later part of the movie. The movie does basically everything it should and it does it well. We get Marcia Gay Harden being a bitchy out of control religious lady, Thomas Jane, who is a stand-up dad. Let me just say, I love Thomas Jane. He is a man who acts. It's a vague love of Thomas Jane... but I'm always willing to see how the man handles himself in a situation. He's never exactly super brave or intelligent or talented. Generally terrible things happen to him ALL THE TIME. But he seems to manage. Although the real stand-out in the movie was Toby Jones, who gives the impression that he'd be a whiny bitch through and through but is basically a HUGE BADASS in the film. If there's every any kind of badassery that occurs, Toby Jones is the one in charge. Since the movie is really more about what these people do when locked in together rather than how these people free themselves, it was kind of neat that the movie didn't just throw the handsome Jane in the forefront of all tasks manly and let us be surprised by who was courageous and who just sucked. Apart of Gay Harden's necessary antagonism, the movie does a good job of not pigeonholing anyone too severely. The Mist does what it needs to with flying colors: keeps us guessing, keeps us interested, and respects us. It's not brilliant. But it's a nice way to spend 2 plus hours. Yeah, that's right... it's a little long.
I'm Thomas Jane and I just want my kids back!
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