The Mist (2008)

It's been some time since a I've felt this manipulated. What further irritates me is that I sat through 127 minutes after remarking midway how manipulated I felt.

Consider yourself warned. I am annoyed; so I will spoil this movie. ***READ NO FURTHER if you don't want to know!!***

Docile small town is also home to armed forces base. Rumor has it experiments go on up on the mountain. Intense thunderstorm brings home damage, power outage and releases mist from mountain. Intense thunderstorm also brings out local townsfolk to the grocery store. Enter Thomas Jane. While in plate-glass fronted grocery store mist rolls in. Thick fog brings with it blood-thirsty creepy-crawlies to the 100th power. Spiders with flesh-melting silk, clawed-tentacled thingies and mosquitoes the size of pterodactyls. Townspeople take refuge. Cocky bastards die first. Crazy, religious nut should die, but that comes later. Thomas Jane takes the lead, wants to save his whiny kid. Day to night. Punk high-schooler dies. Intelligent black guy dies. Crazy, religious nut starts preaching 'expiation'. Die already! Day to night. Crazy, religious nut gets people to drink Kool-Aid. Thomas Jane leads select few to jeep. Ginormous bugs get 3 out of 7. Decide to drive until gas runs out. Mist. More mist. Still mist. Gas runs out. Four bullets, five people. Four people die. Thomas Jane tries to pick fight with creepy-crawlies. Oh snap! Made it to the quarantined area. Fade out.

Writer/producer/director Frank Darabont brings yet another Steven King novella to life. Unlike The Shawshank Redemption or The Green Mile, The Mist is stupid. None of the elements really come together. The dialogue is forced, the actor more so. CG is average at best. Even more annoying-- the score. The score is an eye-roll inducing melodramatic mess. Darabont's attempt at a thoughtful ecological-apocalypse flick is just sad.

Laughable at best, The Mist should be mist.