Finally got around to picking up a copy of The Mist. First, I loved the Stephen King short story and audio book, which boils down to a story of a small town suddenly under siege by things in the mist. And with a good cast, including Andre Braugher, I was really enthused about seeing this movie. But it is so very over the top, and heavy-handed. I know everyone is playing people under stress and extreme circumstances, but I just found a lot of the performances over-acted. And there was just too much of director/screenwriter Frank Darabont trying to get his version of Crash-style commentary into a horror film.
The effectiveness of Marcia Gay Harden's performance should be the lynchpin of this film, but she comes off as a screeching, eye-rolling, caricature rather than the type of forward yet compelling person from whom lynch mobs are born. And Andre Braugher, arguably one the best and most underused actors of his generation, is completely wasted here, playing Darabont's very one-dimensional and twisted version of Johnny Cochran.
And with few exceptions, that's the problem with everyone on the screen. The performances are just so lacking any moderation, so A or Z with nothing in between, that they are cringingly bad. The movie is very heavy-handed, and so forced in its examination of personal dynamics. It tries so hard to be more emotionally resonant than it is. The ending yearns for this David Fincher gut punch, but I found it utterly unconvincing and predictable.
That's not to say the movie is without merits. Like I said, I was a fan of the original story and the effects are good, and I think Thomas Jane does a good job carrying the story. He gives a very understated performance, which is refreshing against the over-acting of everyone else. But I think he was let down by a very unsubtle script, and unsure direction by the usually assured Darabont. I'm not a book purist; I understand a film is its own animal and have no problem with a film diverting from its source material — as long as that change is an improvement. And in the case of Darabont's The Mist the changes do not a great, or a good, film make.
I think horror is Darabont's Achilles heel, as this was easily one of the worst King adaptations, though not as bad as the deplorable Dreamcatcher. So not a horrible movie, but definitely a flawed one, and not one I'll revisit or recommend.
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