Reviews

We've come a long way since Multiplicity and other twin-style movies. The split screen and computer aided work are very convincing. Noomi plays off of her duplicates very well and gives each her own personality and style.

Beyond that, Noomi really shows her ability to rise to the level of a true action star. (As if I had any doubts about the star of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)

In the world of the future, a one child only policy is made and all siblings after the first child are sentenced to be frozen in cryostasis in the hopes they can be thawed out in a future that has been made less overpopulated. It's thought that the children might have horrible nightmares that last hundreds of years in their cryonic state.

Because of certain biological contaminations, it's become more common for people to have more than one child at a time, so when seven girls are born -- all identical, instead of subjecting six to cryofreeze, a man sets out a plan for each to take on the identity of one person -- to share a life between the seven.

There are hardships endured in only being able to leave the home one day per week -- and even then, only to play a role of a person that must be consistent from one day to the next as siblings switch out the responsibility of work, shopping, and possibly having a love life. They can not trust anyone to know their secret, so no one can get too close.

One day, things go very bad when one goes missing... and then from very bad to worse. Don't miss out! Watch. And maybe you'll find out what happened to Monday!

I'm a huge Stephen King fan, and I really enjoyed the movie "The Mist," so I assume I'm part of the target market for this show... and so far, it's been pretty disappointing.

Spoilers may lie ahead!

Here's what I was looking for in a TV-series adaptation: Danger, suspense, backstory on where The Mist comes from, how it came to be released, lots and lots of big creatures (spiders! flies! crab-like things, tentacles!), people learning how to fight with the creatures, maybe a few gung-ho idiots that die quickly and a few gung-ho idiots that succeed in some missions through the mist, smart people who make survivalist plans, crazy people who think it's the end times, a bit of mob-mentality from people scared out of their minds, and hopefully some new twists to keep the show going -- like... maybe missions to Arrowhead to plug the leak, maybe some Pacific Rim style fighting the alien invasion, maybe the US military retaliating against the mist, maybe even some MIB agents or some mythical tale about how the mist had come before and what we need to do to stop it.

Here's what we've got so far up through episode 4: Teenagers dealing with gender issues, rape, underage drinking, marital issues, people casually playing games and chatting while waiting out the mist in a mall (even though they've seen the mist murder people just outside the doors), a few people dying from random things we either can't see or do see for a blip and then are gone with no explanation or exploration, and apparently THIS version of the mist has some sort of magic and consciousness as it "knows people," can conjure up dead people to taunt you, and gets thicker and thinner at times... oh, and the creatures are like... moths, roaches, and smoke-monsters.

I kid you not, 4 episodes in and people are tossing a football in the mall as if people hadn't died outside and squabbling over petty issues. A mother just saw her daughter die, yet she's calm enough to go sit on a pillow and chat about other things. She barely tried to open a door to go after her kid before a monster got her. For some reason, the mist itself IS the monster in a sense b/c people are scared to open a door to let it in... instead of it being just a fog to hide and/or sustain the monsters within it. The show is like "Under the Dome" meets "The Walking Dead" only with less suspense and less horror.

On the plus side, we do have a pastor who thinks it's the end times, a hippie who worships nature that thinks the creatures are manifestations of God, some soldiers who may know more about the Arrowhead project, and we have a girl who for some reason survived a smoke-monster attack. There are still plenty of people to use as fodder, and there's at least one working vehicle to use to explore. All the right notes are there to build something great on, so it's possible they could turn this around.

Maybe it takes 4 episodes to build some exposition... but, I doubt it. It's as if the writer/director thinks the show should be about feelings, deep societal issues, and growing pains instead of -- MONSTERS & people reacting to the END OF THE WORLD as they know it.

I was really hoping for more of a 12 Monkeys style adaptation. Take a movie concept, add in a lot of back-story, create several long story arcs that go beyond the original movie's premise into exciting new territory with new, fun, dangerous things to figure out & new bad-guys, plot twists, and adventures to explore.

Nah, this went all lifetime movie with some deadly fog. So sad.

You will regret ever wasting your time on this movie. It starts nowhere and ends nowhere.

I've seen decent movies about a group of people locked in isolation for months on end -- this was not one of them.

I've seen decent TV series shows and movies where people thought they were in simulations, but weren't... and the reverse. This is not one of them.

*Spoilers*

The movie begins promisingly enough with good actors and a decent premise -- a mission to simulate manned space flight for 400 days. The "astronauts" climb into a bunker underground. They're told not to come out early or their commander will ensure their careers are over.

Long story short, they leave early - to find a desolate world inhabited by crazy people... or maybe they're aliens... or hallucinations. We don't know. I bet neither do the writers.

Warning that spoilers may be below:

This is one of those movies you truly need to watch twice to get the full meaning and impact -- not because there is a twist or it's especially hard to get, but because as things are revealed, you can find parallels between the real world and the dream world. It's not until the final scene when all the jumbled pieces come together that one can see and understand all the metaphors hidden throughout the journey of a dying man with dementia (caused at least in part by multiple strokes) and mental illness coming to terms with his life and struggling desperately to hold on to his most precious memories and the ones he loves.

There are, of course, hints everywhere along the way. But, the way the story is presented is disjointed -- memories from random time frames, surreal dreamscapes with metaphors abound and flashes to the present reality all mixed together along the way. Then, there's the musical scenes which often seem forced, but at least they mostly take place in the dreamland -- which I can forgive as a dying musician is likely to have dreams and nightmares including musicals.

The lead character is suffering from a condition that causes confusion about when and where he is -- and suffers from random gaps in memory that come and go. This mirrors the style of the movie, writings within the movie, the construction of a roller coaster within the dreamland, and the journey the lead character makes. Tom is a man with deep regret. He is scared of losing his memory, and especially concerned with his relationship with his estranged daughter whom he distanced himself from to protect her -- from himself. He had a troubled history with his own father who suffered from mental illness like himself -- and must come to terms with that as well.

The visuals and special effects were very well done - some quite impressively stunning. I'm not a Nightwish fan, but I did enjoy some of the music - especially a few piano melodies. Some have complained about the acting, but I find it believable given the strained relationships and mental states of the characters.

The movie is the video equivalent of a surreal painting -- a work of art with beauty and flaws. Not everyone will understand it, and even those that do may not appreciate it. It's not a blockbuster meant to constantly entertain. There aren't any real heroes or villains - or even much of a plot other than the characters' internal struggles. It isn't a true horror or fantasy adventure so much as a heartbreaking story of a troubled, dying man's love for his daughter and her discovery of the depth of that love. I don't expect everyone to get it, but as someone who has lost estranged loved ones that suffered from dementia and Alzheimer's, this one hit home to me.

I have to say there aren't many dramas about the inner struggles of the dying mentally ill with settings in horror/fantasy dreamworlds and musical scores that include piano and metal. Love it or hate it, it's unique and I applaud the effort. I can't say whether others will enjoy it or not, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and I was touched by its message.

Extreme spoiler:

My favorite part is the realization that Tom, a musician who loved creating music, named his daughter Gem. He plays the piano and talks many times about wanting to hear the chords again -- trying to remember them and specifically mentions E minor a few times. At the end, he describes the most beautiful melody ever created by man - the change from G to E minor. G to Em -- GEM... his daughter. It was sort of a Mr. Holland's Opus moment where you realize she was the music of his life.