Last night, Prairie and I watched The Mist, the recent adaptation of an old Stephen King short story.
Short review: for the first 120 minutes or so, while we had some quibbles with the decisions made, it’s a remarkably faithful adaptation of the original story, and we were really enjoying it. Unfortunately, the last five minutes of the film completely ruined it for us.
If you rent it, I strongly recommend stopping it about five minutes before the end, right about the 1:20 mark. That would be a worthwhile ending, and one that’s more or less true to the original story.
Spoilers after the jump…
The basic premise is pretty well-known by now: a group of people trapped in a supermarket, surrounded by a otherworldly thick mist with Dangerous Things ready and willing to kill them if they leave. At the end of the original story, a small group of four or five people, including the main character and his young son, make it out to his car and start driving south, attempting to get out of the mist. The story ends very ambiguously, with no true resolution — just the hope of salvation as the characters drive on.
As Prairie and I were settling in, we agreed that our biggest hope for the film was that the director would be brave enough to keep that ending, instead of going with either of the two obvious cop-outs: killing everyone, or some deus ex machina that magically drives away the monsters.
Well, the director didn’t choose one of the two obvious cop-outs. He chose both.
We couldn’t believe it. We were already disappointed when it became obvious that the film was going for the “kill everyone” route — the car runs out of gas, there’s four bullets left for the five people, and after an ominous pause, the camera pulls back and we see four flashes as the shots go off within the car. David (the main character) gets out, screams in despair and frustration as he waits for some beastie to show up and finish him off…
…when a tank comes rumbling out of the mist, followed by soldiers wielding flamethrowers burning the mist and the monsters away, escorting a caravan of survivors. What? Oh, you’re kidding. Not just one disappointing cop-out, but two? Neither Prairie nor I have been this annoyed at a film in ages — not even the botched I Am Legend theatrical ending annoyed us this much.
This was even more surprising, given that the screenwriter and director was Frank Darabont, who did such excellent work with adapting The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile to the big screen. We were hoping that it was simply the studio wussing out, not being able to trust that their audiences could cope with an ambiguous ending, and forcing the new ending on the creators, but no — not only was this Darabont’s idea, but Stephen King approves of the change!
…Stephen King was out promoting The Mist and at a press conference…he went on record as publicly saying that he approved of and even “loved” the new ending. Here’s King’s official statement:
Frank wrote a new ending that I loved. It is the most shocking ending ever and there should be a law passed stating that anybody who reveals the last 5 minutes of this film should be hung from their neck until dead.
Well, sorry Stephen, but I’ve gotta say I’m in strong disagreement on this one. Not only was the original ending far better, but this was certainly not the “most shocking ending ever” — unless you count my shock at how badly the ending was butchered. Sigh.