On one hand The Mist is an extremely fun and often times gory horror flick, but on the other it becomes so evangelical and ridiculous that you want to actually throw items at the screen. If Frank Darabont wanted you to not only be terrified by the bugs and other shit coming out of the mist, as well as by Marcia Gay Harden then bravo sir, you accomplished your goal. The second goal The Mist achieves is managing to populate it with a group of people so stupid they really shouldn’t even know how to walk.
Writer/director Frank Darabont has actually crafted an impressive screenplay that manages to keep audiences interested in a story about a mysterious fog that takes over a small coastline town, but as I said, the people that make up this small town are about as dumb as they come. Even the folks that you grow attached to and connect with prove to be morons when all is said and done.
The film opens quickly as a mist covers a small town following a violent storm. Soon it becomes obvious that with this mist comes terrible beasties, the kind you don’t want to mess with, not in the least. Think a foggy Jurassic Park with mutant dinosaurs.
The film focuses on a group of people locked away in a grocery store. Inside here we have our lead, David Drayton played by Thomas Jane, and played very well I may say. Jane is perfect as a father to his young son and you have confidence in him as a leader. You have David’s sworn enemy, the ignorant New York lawyer Brent Norton played by Andre Braugher (please someone give Andre a good role!), you have the religious nut Mrs. Carmody played by Marcia Gay Harden and then there is a variety of other bit players, some more fun than others (Ollie is sure to be your fav).
Obviously inside this grocery store tensions are going to run high and folks begin to have issues, but Mrs. Carmody is just a plain and simple pain in the ass. Early on she is saying the cause of the mist is because of how humans have messed with God’s will, but later on she becomes an actual evangelical preacher. Seriously, after two days she actually has a congregation of folks chanting and calling for the blood of the “guilty”. It is really a poor choice in direction to take the story.
So, you pretty much side with David and his small band of logic following folk, but as the end comes you soon learn that even they are not much smarter, which means there was pretty much no one in the entire movie to connect with. Not a good idea as far as filmmaking goes.
The Mist starts off great, but midway through it begins to fall completely apart. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to take away from the ending. Am I supposed to assume that a belief in God will save me? Am I supposed to believe that dumb luck will keep me alive? Am I supposed to believe that killing innocent people is the way to go? Am I supposed to believe that a lack of patience will get me killed in a time of crisis? Well, I guess that last one is pretty close to accurate, but the rest is a mish-mash of bullshit that I am not even sure if Frank Darabont knew what he wanted from his ending.
I can appreciate Darabont trying for the shocker of an ending, but it proved nothing. If you are going to try to tear at my heart I hope you have good reason, because this was just a blindside for the sake of blindsiding. It was so far away from being cliche that it almost came all the way back to being cliche. Instead I am left in limbo, baffled by what I saw with no desire to ever see it again.
