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Adapted: from the novel by Stephen King; Screenplay: William Goldman & Lawrence Kasdan; Executive Producer: Bruce Berman; Starring: Morgan Freeman as Col. Abraham Curtis; Damien Lewis as Prof. Gary "Jonesy" Jones; Thomas Jane as Dr. Henry Devlin; Jason Lee as Joe "Beaver" Clarendon; Timothy Olyphant as Pete Moore; Tom Sizemore as Capt. Owen Underhill; Andrew Robb as Young Duddits; Production Companies: Castle Rock Entertainment [USA]; NPV Entertainment [USA]; SSDD Films Inc. [Canada]; Village Roadshow Prods. [Australia]; Special Effects: Industrial Light & Magic; Steve Johnson's Edge FX; Length: 136 minutes (134 in USA); Rated: R; Genres: Alien/Telepathy/Horror/Sci-Fi/Military/Male-Bonding; Plot Summary: The critics simply "did not get" this movie. That's because few of them read the thick novel of the same name by Stephen King. It is actually one of the best screen adaptations of King, and compresses most of its subplots into a complicated and fast-paced thoughtful action-adventure film, a rare combination indeed. The critics also couldn't tell if this was Horror or Sci-Fi. It's neither. It is true Science Fiction. The critics also condemned the film as derivative, and a rehash of King's favorite themes. Actually, the film captures King's unique spin on each otherwise familiar element. Four closely-bonded men, having a hard time with life, meet for their annual drinking/hunting getaway in the remote Maine woods. At first, the foursome from fictional Derry, Maine, are threatened only by a blizzard. But things go unhinged when a disoriented stranger staggers in. The four already have mid-life crises to contend with, and ready to talk them out at "Hole in the Wall." Comic/Sad Beav has problems with the opposite sex; Henry, a bookish psychiatrist, is close to suicide. Pete has slipped into beery alcoholism. Jonesy has weird premonitions, ever since a hallucination almost caused him to die as a pedestrian hit by a car. But the stranger talks about lights in the sky, wild animals with odd red patches migrate past the cabin, and the stranger has something bloody moving around inside him, which kills him horribly. What was it, and how can they fight it? And is the greater danger inside or outside? The story takes on paranormal tones as they recall the heroic act that bound them together, in childhood. They'd saved an apparent idiot, Duddits, from being tortured by school football-team bullies. But the idiot is something more unusual, and the four have even stranger powers as a result. Soon we are plunged into a nightmare of interplanetary aliens with either shape-shifting or telepathic powers, or both, and something deadly that is either symbiote or not, and a fast-growing red fungus. And is the secret military hero leading forces against the aliens a real hero, or a psychotic vigilante? Nothing is quite what it seems. And the blizzard bears down on all. Who will prevail: the aliens, or the Colonel? Will the Colonel destroy the town to save it, kill innocent civilians, or even nuke Maine? And has an alien taken over one of the four friends' minds, or become lost in the man's mental warehouse? And what about spreading the alien invasion through the water supply? This is a tricky and exciting film. My wife and I loved it. So did Stephen King, who often hates his screen adaptations. The critics miss the boat completely. Recommended. |
