Movie Review: The Missed

WARNING: SPOILERS!

I know that I shouldn't be reviewing movies, but have you guys seen this The Mist movie? Man, its pretty crazy. It had been sitting at the apartment for a month or so, and I was feeling particularly fright-possible on Sunday night, so I went for it.

If you didn't know, this thing was based upon a Stephen King short story. Now, I'm not going to lie to you. I'm a member of the Stephen King Library. The Stand is still my favorite mini-series of all time. I signed up ten years ago and they sent me a free skeleton key chain. Since then, I've received every King book. And then once I received them all, they started sending me desk calendars and other stuff like that. Anything they could reasonably charge me (read: my mom) for, they sent me. I would un-sign up at this point, but at this point, I don't necessarily know how to do it.

So, I've got a bit of a vendetta against Mr. King. And then, a few years back, he started writing a monthly back-page column for my favorite magazine, Entertainment Weekly. At first, it seemed like an exciting idea, but it quickly became my most despised part of the magazine. Sure he'd talk up Lost, but then he'd waste his next breath on Jericho and muse about how Skeet Ulrich is one of America's most talented young actors. And then my blood pressure rises everytime I hear him mention his musical taste. Rockabilly that. Garage that. Driveby Truckers over here. Ryan Adams over there.

But the kicker is how often he refers to himself as "your uncle Stevie." Its something that I'd expect from my other least favorite Ste[ph/v]en, Steven Van Zandt. Fortunately, he already calls himself "Little Steven," so "Uncle Little Stevie" would be too much of a mouthful for even him.

So, anyhow, this movie was adapted for the screen and directed by Frank Darabont. Without Stephen King, this guy would be living in the gutter. He struck gold with the Shawshank Redemption. And then, he sorta made a movie out of The Green Mile. The rest of his credits read very similar to my own. If I wrote a draft for a new Indiana Jones movie, I'm sure George Lucas and Steven Spielberg (Number One Steven?) would reject it too. And I'm sure that I'd be bitter about it.

The Mist opens with a big-time storm and a bunch of trees falling down. And so, the next morning, the lead character (we'll call him Desperate Househusband, since I've never seen him before and he seems the type that's probably done a stint on Desperate Housewives) goes outside and him, his wife and little boy complain about all of the trees. One of them fell right onto their boathouse! They thought they had it bad, until the Desperate Househusband goes next door to find that a giant tree also fell onto Andre Braugher's BMW or some shit!

This is the point in the movie where I was hoping that I was about to watch two hours worth of this househusband walking around town checking out all the weird stuff that trees can fall on.

But that's not what it is. It turns out that Andre Braugher signed up to play another grumpy guy who's way too stuck in his ways. It appears that him and the DHH sorta hate each other. Lawsuits and stuff. But they let bygones be bygones, and the DHH lets AB tag along with him and his boy as they go to town to visit the supermarket. And then the househusband even tells the boy to hold Braugher's hand as they walked into the store.

This supermarket is filled to the brim with superstars! Marcia Gay Harden is all religiousy. The little man that plays Truman Capote when Philip Seymour Hoffman isn't available is there, and fortunately, he's good at shooting a gun. And then there's two of your favorite Hey, Its That Guy!s. This guy and that guy (here pictured with your favorite Hey, Its That Pilot!). Then, there's a bunch of other people.

Anyhow, they all get locked inside of this supermarket, because this big Mist has decided to roll into town and kill everyone. What's in the Mist? A lot of big insects. Who cares.

Anyhow, the desperate househusband is the first to discover that its a bunch of insects when he goes back into the store room to get his boy a blanket. Him and four other guys. One of them is killed. So, they come back into the main store. DHH tries to explain this to Andre Braugher and Andre Braugher flat out refuses to believe any of it. "You're making this up! You're playing a practical joke on me! Fuck you!" He doesn't care about the missing bagboy. He doesn't care about the bloody clothes. He doesn't care about the chunk of tentacle that DHH cut off of the giant squid that killed the bagboy. Fuck you!

Meanwhile, there are some soldiers in the supermarket. Shouldn't they be taking charge of the situation? Nope. Its all up to the househusband. Its not like they're painted as cowards or something and reluctant to help out. Its just that they showed them enter the store, but then the story just forgets about them, until the story decides that it wants one of them to have sex with one of the cashiers in the snack room.

Okay okay. So they hang out for a while. Capote shoots Marcia Gay Harden.

And then, the househusband decides that him, his boy, DHH's new love interest (perhaps an old flame?) and two old people are going to run out to his car and they're just gonna start driving and take it however far they can go! Capote was gonna come too, but he got eaten. Luckily, they were able to take his gun with them.

So, they keep driving until the fuel runs out. But its still misty! Rather than be killed by these insects, they decide (while the boy sleeps!) that they'll just shoot themselves. But they only have four bullets! Five people. Four bullets! "I'll figure something out."

So, the car has been stalled for nearly five minutes. There is no sign of the insects. But why take any chances? Let's just kill ourselves immediately. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Old person, old person, lady, boy. All dead!

Within seconds, the fog starts to clear a little bit and some Army tanks roll by. A rescue mission. All order has been restored! No more insects. DHH gets out of his car and cries his eyes out! How awful! "I killed my boy!"

Man, what a jerk.

Go see this movie!!!