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The Mist (2017)
This it not the mist you are looking for
An adaptation can't keep everything from the source material, that's understandable. However, it should at least keep the most prominent elements in order to be an adaptation, and not a different work of the same name.
There is a mist here, but it's not the mist from the book. Instead of a simple mist that hides the monsters that you can actually fight with physical force, this is more of a mental fog that preys on your fears, sort of an incorporeal Freddy Kruger in his third incarnation. It also produces inexplicable hallucinations, blocks radio communications, stops cars from working for everyone but the main characters, is toxic when it's convenient to the plot, but not at other times, and generally acts differently every time it's on screen, which isn't very often.
The titular mist shows up on average once an episode. When it is there, it kills in cheesy ways. Eaten by bugs, shot by some random guy for no reason, dragged off by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, or... just falling over dead with no explanation. Protection from the mist is being in an enclosed space, although "enclosed" is very relative. Mist doesn't enter cars for some reason, even when a door is open.
Between total lack of consistency and cheap effects this looks like an 80's B movie. This could work, if they played it campy. They don't, instead opting for all the heavy-handed seriousness of a "very special episode" and all the teen drama of Beverly Hills, 90210.
Some of the subplots are so irrelevant to the story, it's plain laughable. The bit about Eve being fired from school for teaching too much sex adds absolutely nothing. The town residents have a bunch of reasons to dislike her already. At best, this could have been a single line in an argument, not a whole scene just for the sake of setting up one single minor confrontation.
They try to provide far too much background on some characters, even doing a flashback to Alex's parents having sex. I guess they wanted to start at the moment of conception(or non-conception, as the case may be). This robs screen time from everyone and everything else. It winds up being a drawn out soap opera with an occasional slight splash of gore. There are long stretches where literally nothing much happens, soulful conversations about feelings, and far too many unnecessary flashbacks.
The sad thing is, all this effort is wasted. Characters remain mostly cardboard cutouts. I would not blame this on actors - the are really not given much to work with. Irene Bedard, a veteran actor, has such a small part that it could have been played by a random extra. Others have stilted dialog and contrived interactions that are just hard to breathe life into.
Being a "people vs. everything going to hell" type of show, this will inevitably be compared to Walking Dead. WD has it's share of problems, but it focuses far more on what's actually happening to the characters now, rather than years in the past. The Mist does the opposite.
Vast majority of drama and tension in this show comes from the messy family lives of the characters, with the actual main story line of dealing with the mist taking a back seat. Often, it seems like the characters forget the mist. The main thrust changes from people losing the thin veneer of civilization under pressure to marital strife, bad parenting, and teen angst.
I think complaints about the "SJW propaganda" are a bit silly - Stephen King does make points about parenting, relationships, and social issues in his books. However, I do think the way these things were included was very artificial and unrefined. King usually does it with a brushstroke, not with a bulldozer.
One of the few actual good subplots is the Arrowhead Project and involvement of the military in the appearance of the mist. However, this is alluded to only about a half a dozen times in the 10 episodes, and really only becomes a serious story element in the last one.
Speaking of the last episode, it's the best one in this confused mess. There is the most action, tension, and mystery.
However, it's also the one where the character of one of best actors on the show, Francis Conroy, gets killed off, randomly shriveling, despite being previously unaffected by the mist. Almost the entire rest of the cast dies. The half-dozen people who do go on are spared despite people literally dying all around them, and find themselves in a magically working car. Then, they witness mass murder by government agents who are supposed to be saving them, sitting unnoticed in the only working car for miles with their headlights on. Plot armor achieves truly epic thickness here.
The mist at this point is again forgotten as the enemy, totally supplanted by this new monster in the form of armed men in gas masks. Wasn't that an early episode of The 100? I am not sorry to see this canceled. It's a bad adaptation. There were so many ways to tie it into the original story, and they went for none of it. The only things left are title, the idea of a mist, and one secondary character's death. It's not quite as bad a gutting as Lawnmower Man, which had nothing but the title left, but it's pretty close to it. It's also a bad show on it's own merits. It tried to be too many things, and totally lost track of what it was actually supposed to be. It also used far too many clichés and recycled ideas from other shows, overlaid on the pacing taken from a completely different genre.
Can we please have Frank Darabont expand his movie into a series instead?
Dream Warrior (2003)
Pretty damn bad
While this isn't the worst movie I've seen, it is one of the few where I gave up on it before finishing it. The producer of this thing must have had pictures of Lance Henriksen and Isaac Hayes in bed together to rope them into this.
This is basically X-men set in post-apocalypse with bikers (all half-dozen of them) shot on a budget and with the skill of a bunch of fifth-graders. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the story is rambling and incoherent with oddball elements like a surprise tribe of Juggalos that nobody knows about living just around the corner.
The main problem, though, is that the story is very slow and boring. Not even the Juggalos and the half-naked girls can save it. If you are are fan of the genre, there is any number movies, most of them made in the 80's, that are much better, even in their awfulness.
The reason this gets two stars is that I actually know worse films.
Voyna (2002)
A more realistic Missing in Action with Russian flavor.
The plot really reminded me of the old Chuck Norris action movies. Soldier, taken prisoner, manages to get free, then comes back and takes revenge.
The difference is that this is nowhere near over the top as a traditional action film. Grenades don't go off like mini-nukes, cars don't burst into flames when shot, gunshots sound as unimpressive as they are in reality, fights are not elaborately choreographed dance sequences. There are quite a few places where disbelief must be suspended, but they aren't painful in the context of the film. Other notable action movie aspects that are missing are one-liners and the happy end. However, there is an absolutely classic equipment-gathering scene.
This low-key realistic approach coupled with little touches of Russian life is what makes this movie good.
The acting... Well, the two main characters aren't that great, but in a way that works. Both of them are supposed to be amateurs, forced into action by circumstance. In fact, Ivan's amazing transformation from an imprisoned private who was drafted into the army into a commando is one of the less believable aspects of the film.
Those expecting deep social commentary and much philosophy will probably be disappointed. Seeing this as a different kind of an action movie works much better.