By Linda Winsh-Bolard
Based on a short novel by Stephen King.
In bucolic but removed Maine town a storm soaks the landscape and the accompanying winds break trees and damage properties.
David Drayton (Thomas Jane) and his nine years old son Billy (Nathan Gamble) take their neighbor to town to get supplies, leaving Mom behind. As they are leaving, they see a strange cloud making its way down to the valley from the mountains. They think little of it.
Once in town, it turns out that the phone lines are down as well as the signal for the cells and the town is cut off from the rest of the country.
While they are shopping the mist reaches the town and slowly, heavily creeps up to the local supermarket. Warned by three military men, the town’s people close the door against the mist. One of them doesn’t listen and becomes a lesson for all: his screams are loud enough to pass through the glass as he dies before he reaches his car.
A group of strange people is trapped in relative safety of the town’s market but although they have food and fluids, the electricity is scarce and they suffer from lack of understanding of what is really happening and terror of uncertainty of what has happened to their families.
Typically for Stephen King the group represents strongly defined human prototypes that are bound to clash: the relatively resourceful temporary occupant of the town, David Drayton, who came from Hollywood and represents reason, the town hysterical Christian Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden) bend to what she perceives to be the will of an old and blood thirsty God, the military for the evil government, the towns hicks who will sway wherever they think is best for them, the shopkeeper, Ollie (Toby Jones) who in humble body hides unusual abilities and decisiveness many won’t have, the gentle woman, and a gamut of smaller parts.
Tempers fly high as the refugees slowly realize that not only the choking mist might get them, but that there are also large, strange creatures hidden in that mist, some crawling, some flying. With one handgun and about 10 bullets, they have little to protect themselves and those creatures are hungry.
The mist is the best part of the film, heavily weighting veil, sometimes creeping up to show shadows and shapes, sometimes covering all, it serves very well to create a sense of suspense. The animated creatures are somehow metallically indifferent, despite the close ups of their faces, legs and jaws. They remain unreal even as they kill in their sometimes unusual ways. The creepies-crawlies resemble their earlier version in the War of the Worlds and Aliens.
Unfortunately, the most alive and fun to watch characters are the small parts, namely the old couple, the shopkeeper and the soldier with his girl. The main characters are far too flat to make an interesting human interplay. We know the Father will love the Son, the moms will mourn the kids, the fanatics will demand sacrifice and reason needs to come into it. There really is nothing new here.
That is to say nothing new but the end, and the ending takes good 20 minutes and honestly calls for shortening of the teary parts, but when it concludes it is brutal, shocking surprise, very well shot.
The rest of the film is not nearly as good, the plot has been used many times previously (30 Days of Night and The Night of Living Dead are just two that came to my mind) with few new twists- how far will religious hysteria go? What constitutes reason? The mist hides a lot, so the budget is probably low, and the acting, well what can you expect when shallow is the prevailing characteristic supplied by the authors? Thomas Jane is hunky, manly and strong, Marcia Gay Harden screams and spits fire as much as possible for such an implausible part and Toby Jones is sweet, shy and strong nerd. They just have very little to work with.
The film was written and directed by Frank Darabont, who previously directed The Shawshank Redemption, and The Green Mile, both based on Kings novels, as well as The Majestic, but this time his love for Stephen King did not pay off.
Camera: Rohn Schmidt, editor, Hunter M. Via; music, Mark Isham;
Cast: Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Nathan Gamble, Laurie Holden, Alexa Davalos, Sam Witwer, Chris Owen, Sam Witwer, Robert C. Treveiler, David Jensen
