Movie review: "The Stand"

"The Stand" is one more "blast from the past" (1994, to be precise). Or so I thought before I started watching it. It is not actually a movie; it is a four-part miniseries (every part is about 1.5 hours long). I remember watching this series when I was a kid 10-15 years old and I remember enjoying it. I also remember watching only first two parts... Which makes the crucial difference.

Because the show sucks after second episode. Third part is only moderately good compared to first two parts, but last episode, and especially the ending, is really bad. Well, if I think about it objectively, it's not so bad, but when you consider the potential first two parts have, this is very bad.

Anyway, "The Stand" starts with the end of the world. Some kind of super-flu is accidentally released from US secret laboratory and it kills most of people on the world. It's not explicitly said, but I got an impression that there were only few thousand people left in America. During the chaos resulting from the virus, while fighting for survival, some of the unaffected people have dreams of an old woman, preaching about God and warning them to be careful of the "dark man" (or some other similar name, I'm not sure). After some time, people will divide in two camps: the good ones, joined around mother Abigail (the old woman) and the bad ones, led by Flagg (the dark man).

As I said, first two parts are great. The fear, the struggle, the confusion... Everything is represented superbly. Tension is present all the time. But, even during the second episode, you start wondering "When the action will start?". And the answer in "Never!!!". Show fails to develop this tension to some kind of plot. Instead, you get the characters wondering around all the time.

Second flaw is the characters: they are totally predictable and one-dimensional. Good guys are made halfway believable (thought, they are likable), but when you see the bad guys, you can't help wondering "Are you guys total idiots?!?!". And the main villain... Looks like somebody didn't read the Evil Overlord List...

Third flaw are special effects. If you can't do them decently, don't do them. Show does the same mistake as "Close Encounters of the Third Kind": it shows what should not be showed. There it was the aliens, and here is the main villain's true face. And when you see it, it ruins what's left of the movie.

Also, I didn't like the feel of religious fanaticism the show promotes. I remember Stephen King always being close to religion in his writing (e.g. the kid in "Desperation") but the end of this show is a bit too much.

So, in conclusion, it's not a show I can recommend to anybody. It had a nice potential, but it failed to deliver.

The Shawshank Redemption - movie review

After few months, I have watched a movie for once. I like watching movies, but I like books, anime and manga more, so movies get their turn mostly when I'm at someone's house. "The Shawshank Redemption" is a movie that I planned to watch for a long time. I'm not sure is this a world-wide opinion, but this movies has something like a cult-movie status in my country, at least among people of my generation (20-30). Since I somehow missed it on TV in all these years (and it was broadcasted quite often), I already got a "You didn't watch it?!?!?" reaction few times. So I decided to rectify it.

There were some facts that I knew about the movie beforehand: that it was based on a novel by Stephen King and that it's taking place in a prison. So I expected something in line with "The Green Mile": a group of people in prison, brought together by some character with mystic powers.

After watching it, I see that I was half right. This is a movie about the two decades of life in a prison. Main character is Andrew Dufresne (played by Tim Robbins), a young and successful banker sentenced for life in the prison for double murder of his wife and her lover. In the prison, he befriends Red (played by Morgan Freeman) and some other inmates. He has it tough in the beginning, but he is an intelligent and stubborn person so he is able to overcome it. Later, using his knack for making money, he is able to ensure a better life for himself and his friends. Ending was really surprising for me.

It is a very good movie, but I didn't find it as great as I expected. There were few very touching moments in the movie and I rooted for main characters during the whole movie, but it's not a movie to left me wondering and contemplating about it for days after watching. If I watched this 10 or 15 years ago, I presume I would be much more impressed. However, I already watched "The Green Mile" and "The Last Castle", so, for me, this is just another movie about man in prison, making friends there. It is still a good movie, with good characters, capable of surprising with some unexpected plot twist.

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I've been reading "20th Century Boys" manga for last week or so. I have one more volume to read, so I will be posting a review about it very soon.