Sunshine

Sunshine is a movie that presents an intriguing premise - what if our sun were dying? Unfortunately, director Danny Boyle isn't able to capitalize on that premise in order to make an original film. Instead he has cobbled together elements from 2001, Alien, and Event Horizon (among others) in order to make what feels like a Sci-fi's Greatest Hits movie. If you're a fan of science fiction, you'll have seen this all before. Yet I must confess: in spite of how familiar it felt, I still enjoyed the hell out of this movie.

The movie follows a team of eight astronauts aboard the Icarus II as they travel to the sun with a bomb large enough to reignite the dying sun. They leave behind an Earth nearly frozen and on its last legs. If they fail, everyone is doomed. The pressure is even more intense as they are following in the footsteps of the lost Icarus I, the ship sent years earlier to restart the sun that mysteriously vanished. The crew is made up of your typical archetypes, like the stoic captain (Hiroyuki Sanada), the uncertain science officer (Cillian Murphy), the hot head engineer (Chris Evans), and the shifty doctor (Cliff Curtis). To give away what happens on their trip would be unfair (although not too hard to predict on your own), but suffice it to say, things go awry.

I suppose why I was so engrossed by this movie had to do with the visuals and sound. For such a small budget movie, it looks very impressive. That may be because, unlike Transformers, the visuals aren't the center attraction, but simply used to enhance the film. You appreciate them more because they aren't on screen all the time. The sound is also unusual and intense, creating a feeling of really being on a space ship. All these elements combined to provide a great example of why seeing some movies in a theater is still the best way to watch something.

One thing this movie lacked was a sense of urgency. We're told the world is on its last legs, that these eight people are humanity's last hope. By not seeing Earth during its darkest hour, we have a hard time getting invested in its fate. I got the impression that Boyle wanted this to be Children of Men in space, but it simply lacked that human edge that the other film had. That said, there were little moments of wonder sprinkled throughout that attempted to make things more relatable. Perhaps my favorite of these moments was when the crew flew past Mercury, all wide-eyed with awe. It made me realize that we tend to forget about that planet closest to the sun.

I realize now that many people reading a synopsis of this film might immediately think of The Core, a film with a very similar premise but pointed inward instead of upwards, so to speak. Thinking of that movie might bring to mind images of cheesy disaster flicks, something this is most decidedly not. Boyle made a very strong attempt at creating a scientifically believable film, and I pretty much went along with everything that was sold to me. Indeed, this is a smart movie for the most part, and were it not for the final half hour, it might have been able to overcome its familiar plot points to be a fairly transcendent experience.

Again, I don't want to give away too much, but the film basically presents us with an hour long tense, but thoughtful, movie. Yet the final third becomes something so different from what we've been presented so far that it almost runs the thing off the rails. It's not that the final direction is bad, just that had it been that movie from the start it wouldn't have felt so jarring. Thankfully the movie is able to overcome this plot twist in the final minutes and present a surprisingly resonant ending.

There were moments where I thought that Sunshine could end up among the year's best movies. It may still. I really had a great time with it, and while I felt like I'd seen much of it before, Boyle was able to present familiar scenes and conventions in an exciting way. Were it not for the drastic tonal change in the climax, this would have been a great movie. As it stands, it is simply a fun time at the movies.

*On a side note, I've found that Fox Searchlight has done some of the worst advertising for this movie I've ever seen. In many ways it would be better to not advertise at all than what they're doing. In essence, they've placed ads all over the Internet showing who dies in the movie and how. Please avoid these if at all possible. You may want to see this movie, you may not, you may be undecided. Whatever your stance, seeing how the characters die isn't going to make you want to go if you didn't already, and it ruins much of the impact if you do want to see it.

The Simpsons Movie

About ten years ago they would run a Simpsons version of the THX logo before movies. In it, the audio would be turned up so loud that everyone in the audience exploded - except for Grandpa Simpson, who would yell at the screen "Turn it up!" At twelve years old, my friends and I found that to be the funniest thing imaginable, and the first time we saw it we ended up talking about it more than the movie it was preceding. That really speaks to how big of a cultural phenomenon The Simpsons was in the mid 90's, something that seems to have faltered as the show trudged on, now nearing twenty years on air. Yet in spite of how long the show has been on, or perhaps because of it, The Simpsons Movie is a refreshingly funny and smart film. It's almost as if they used the past 18 years to really come up with something worthy of the big screen.

When Homer Simpson befriends a pig, all hell breaks loose in Springfield. After an unfortunate mistake on Homer's part, the city of Springfield is quarantined inside a giant bubble. Although the Simpson clan is able to escape the bubble, the rest of the city is trapped, and it becomes Homer's duty to free the town before it's too late. In essence, it sounds like a run of the mill episode of the show, yet it isn't. In many ways, this feels surprisingly epic, like it deserves to be seen on the big screen. There's always the argument that TV shows turned movie won't work because no one wants to pay for something they can see for free every week (a fact Homer reminds us in the audience of in a not so subtle way). Yet this film overcomes that by upgrading the animation, creating a plot that really needs more time than 20 minutes will allow, and by trying to make us connect with the characters instead of just laugh with them.

The jokes are fast and furious here. I feel like I was at least chuckling throughout, and there were a number of laugh out loud moments (Bart's nude skating scene provided a great laugh, as well as reminded us why we love The Simpsons - they always mess with conventions). Also, a lot of characters get at least one good joke, either verbally or visually, which is impressive considering the number of characters this show has accumulated. It might have been nice to give some other characters more screen time, like Moe or Mr. Burns. Yet focusing primarily on just the Simpsons was probably a smart move as it made this feel more like a movie and less like a TV show with a lot of asides.

Honestly, if you like The Simpsons you'll like this movie. I was a little worried that it would just feel like a couple episodes cobbled together (like the Family Guy movie), yet it didn't. After seeing it, I actually kind of hope that Matt Groening and Co. realize that it's finally ok to let The Simpsons end on TV, because these characters feel like naturals on the big screen.

Transformers

As I've written before, I hold Jurassic Park to be the quintessential blockbuster of my generation. The sense of pure awe you get from seeing those dinosaurs brought to life on the big screen for the first time is something that has not been matched by any film since. Sure, some have tried (Independence Day, War of the Worlds), but none were able to equal the level of utter wonder of Spielberg's dinosaur film. Until now. While I think Transformers has some deeply flawed elements, it is nonetheless the most jaw-dropping summer blockbuster to be released in the 14 years since Jurassic Park upped the ante on cinematic wonderment.

The story is largely an excuse to find a way to present giant robots fighting each other. Eons ago there were two factions of Transformers: the Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, and the Decepticons, led by Megatron. The source of power on their home world of Cybertron was a cube called the Allspark. When Megatron tried to take the Allspark for himself, Prime launched it into space. It eventually found its way to Earth, with the Autobots and Decepticons in pursuit. The only person who holds the key to locating it is Sam (Shia LaBeouf), and both sides race to find him before the other. There are subplots including a love story between Sam and Mikaela (Megan Fox), and a search for the source of an attack on an Iraq base. But really, it's all a set up for the final 30 minute free for all.

I want to get out of the way my two biggest complaints first. One is a problem any casual film goer would probably notice, while the other is something that is from more of a fan perspective (I grew up with the cartoon and toys, although I have only vague memories of most of the story). The problem that should have destroyed the film is the script, which has to be one of the dumbest put to screen in recent memory. When we first meet all the Autobots, we are told they learned how to talk by reading the Internet. The same must be true for whoever wrote the screenplay as not a single character seems to know how normal people speak. The jokes are often painfully bad, more in the vain of inducing groaning than laughter. And did these writers only ever meet one black man in their life? How else to explain that two different black characters treat their mothers/grandmothers in derogatory ways? Yet the film seems almost to be Michael Bay's thesis that in the right hands, the script is completely unimportant. And you know, he provides a strong argument.

The other problem is one that I think a lot of fans feared when Bay said he's the best man to direct this film because he thinks the idea of transforming robots is stupid (this is the same director who gave us such thinking man's films as Armageddon and The Island). As a result, the Transformers take a back seat to the humans. Optimus Prime's first appearance is not for an hour, while Megatron shows up only for the final battle. My own personal problem was the lack of Starscream, the one part of the original Transformers that I strongly remembered and loved. Starscream was Megatron's right hand "man" but always had aspirations for overthrowing Megatron, something he eventually accomplished. Here he shows up only at the end, and has just one line of dialogue. While the film alludes to the tenuous relationship between the two Decepticons, it is not really notable. And really, that is one example of how all the Transformers are treated: we just don't get to know any of them, they are never more than just giant robots. Still, Bay made up for Starscream's lack of presence by giving him the most bad ass moment in the film, as well as leaving open the possibility for a much larger role in the inevitable sequel.

Really, though, everything else works very well. The acting is good, and I am now convinced that Shia LaBeouf will become one of the biggest actors of his generation. He has an undeniable charm, and a real screen presence. The true star, though, is the special effects. Wow. Much like with Gollum or King Kong in recent years, the CG characters become real as the film progresses. And to see multiple CG robots battling it out is truly impressive. Anyone who played with Transformers as a kid will probably remember taking two action figures and smashing them into each other, playing out what in their minds was the most epic battle ever imagined. There is no other way to describe the final 30 minute battle than as Michael Bay transporting our 8 year old imaginations with those toys onto the big screen. And while I was highly skeptical of Bay's decision to focus so strongly on humans over Transformers, it paid off in spades. While I really didn't care about the characters, it gave the film a sense of hugeness, as we saw these robots from human perspectives. When you first see a Transformer transform, it's a jaw dropping experience in part because the characters witnessing it are so amazed. It really is the equivalent to the first time the dinosaurs appeared in Jurassic Park.

I suspect that had it not been so dumb and poorly written, Transformers would be widely considered to be one of the few elite popcorn movies, in the same category as Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark. Still, it is the closest to that kind of pure entertainment we've had in more than a decade, and my mouth was hanging open for large portions of the run time. Perhaps the biggest sign of this film's place in history was the looks on the kids' faces around me as I left the theater: their eyes were wide open with awe, and as they walked past, one kid said to another "We're watching that again." I got the feeling they saw the same thing I saw when the T-Rex attacked those two cars so many years ago.

Ratatouille

I wonder if the kids growing up over the past decade will realize how lucky they were to be children in the era of Pixar? My childhood ended just as Toy Story came out, and by the time A Bug's Life was released, I was already at the age where "kid's movies" were beneath me. It really wasn't until The Incredibles that I was mature enough to see Pixar movies as more than just children's entertainment. Now, we all have those movies we grew up with that we look back on with fondness, but often that fondness has more to do with our being kids than the actual quality of the films. I somehow doubt Flight of the Navigator, D.A.R.Y.L., or The Great Mouse Detective really hold up well. Yet for 12 years, Pixar have consistently brought us the best family films. These are films that anyone can enjoy, regardless of age. I hope that when the kids of today are older, they will be able to see that the difference between Ratatouille and Shrek the Third is like the difference between Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Rock-A-Doodle.

Ratatouille is a complex message wrapped in a simple premise. Remy the rat knows that he can be a great chef if given a chance. After getting separated from his family, he finds himself in the restaurant of his recently deceased idol, Gusteau the Chef. From his perch, he witnesses the new garbage boy, Linguini, attempting to fix a soup he spilled. Linguini knows nothing about cooking and is clearly ruining the soup, so Remy intervenes and fixes it, only to be caught. Linguini takes Remy to the river to dispose of him, but realizes that Remy can understand him. Not only that, but Remy could be Linguini's ticket to cooking success. The two team-up and Linguini quickly becomes the most renowned new chef in Paris. But his boss, Skinner, knows something is amiss, and he won't rest until he finds out what.

The film focuses greatly on following your dreams, as well as examining prejudices. If Remy really is a better chef than any human, should he be allowed to cook, in spite of the fact that he is a rat? It's an interesting question, and one that doesn't come with as simple of a solution as one might expect from an animated film. This isn't meant to be some magical rat that can talk; he's just a regular rat that you might find in your basement, and he happens to understand cooking. As such, the film treats him as we might treat a regular rat, so the ending is satisfyingly true to life, yet not a downer, either. The film never tries to tell us how we should feel about our prejudices, only trying to open up our mind to the idea of how our prejudices work. It's really rather beautiful.

Director Brad Bird grounds the film very much in reality. As I mentioned, this is just a normal rat. He can't speak English, so he and Linguini can't actually converse. Yes, he can understand English, but it's treated in a fairly realistic manner. We'd never expect our pets to start talking to us, but we do get the sense that they can understand us sometimes. Remy can talk to other rats, however, and he is voiced by Patton Oswalt. The voice work in general in this film is another example of why Pixar is so great. Aside from Oswalt, I did not recognize a single voice. So color me surprised to find such actors as Will Arnett, Peter O'Toole, Brain Dennehy, Brad Garrett, Janeane Garafalo, and Ian Holm in the cast list. Pixar makes a real effort to find actors who fit the characters, not big names who can sell a movie. These actors fit their parts so perfectly, I never once thought "Will Arnett sure is being funny" like I might have thought about Eddie Murphy in Shrek. This only helps us to become absorbed into the world of the film.

And oh, what a world it is. Bird directs this film with such deftness that you forget it's animated. The camera swoops and swerves. It peeks in through windows, and down through holes. It all feels like a living, breathing world with things constantly going on outside of the frame. The animation itself compliments that world wonderfully, and I doubt there has been a better looking CG film yet made. It's not enough they get the fur on the rats right, they have to get the constant heart beat as well (watch Remy and you'll notice his little chest is always rapidly beating). Pixar still has trouble getting humans to not look creepy, however. The eyes in particular look like glass eyes. Yet that is a small quibble for such a gorgeous film.

Of all the Pixar films, though, this may be the least accessible to kids. It's about two hours long and the story is filed with references to things I doubt kids would care about (French cuisine, the process of critical food reviews, etc). Also, it's not very funny compared to other animated films. It's much more about the story and the world, and I fear the younger ones will not care. But for anyone who is old enough to enjoy a film beyond just jokes, the story is enough to delight.

People always like to rank the Pixar films, in spite of the fact that it's like comparing the tallest skyscrapers. Yeah, one might be the tallest, but they're all so tall and separated by only a few feet in height, it feels slightly pointless. If The Incredibles and the Toy Story duo are the best, then Ratatouille falls in just underneath. But again, that's not saying much, as they are all pretty amazing. Really, if you want to have a good time and be taken into a beautiful and fully realized world, you could do a lot worse than this delightful adventure.

As always with Pixar, Ratatouille is also accompanied by a short film. This one is called Lifted, and it's about an alien space ship attempting to abduct an unsuspecting human. While not quite as good as last year's One Man Band, it is still quite cute. As per usual, there is no speaking in the short, instead relying only on the ability of the animators to create an engaging visual story. These short films give one a lot of hope for next summer's Wall-E, Pixar's rumored attempt at making a largely dialogue-free animated film. It's nice to see that they're never satisfied in giving us the same old thing every time, unlike their counterparts at Dreamworks.

Live Free or Die Hard

In 1993's The Last Action Hero, a young boy magically enters the world of an action movie staring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold learns that he is in fact a hero in an action movie, and as such certain conventions must always apply-the most important being that he will never die no matter how ridiculous the situations he finds himself in. Watching the newest Die Hard movie, I found myself thinking back to this movie and that particular element. In one scene in Live Free or Die Hard John McClane is driving a car at full speed down a tunnel, planning to drive it into a waiting helicopter. Just before jumping out, he mumbles "This is probably a bad idea," then jumps out. Sure enough, the plan works, and McClane just laughs to himself. It seems that McClane has finally discovered that he is in a movie as well, and as such he doesn't take anything seriously anymore. He can't die, so he may as well create the most preposterous situations imaginable for himself. The sense of urgency or dread that something terrible might happen no matter how hard McClane tries to avert it found in previous installments is gone, replaced with simply an attempt to one up the previous stunts.

Very few franchises are consistently good beyond the first film, but I'd place the Die Hard trilogy in that rare camp in which each movie is pretty damn good. Sure Die Hard 2 was a bit silly, but it generally worked. Die Hard With a Vengeance, however, is an unqualified great sequel, recapturing much of what made the original so good while attempting to do something different. That Live Free falls so short of the mark is made all the more unpleasant because of how strong the track record was for this franchise. I think part of what's so wrong with this film is that the plot is a great idea for an action film, but not a great idea for a Die Hard film. The premise is that a group of terrorists unleash a blackout on America, disrupting lights, computers, TV, everything. It'd probably work as a fun James Bond film, or maybe even as a season of 24. But Die Hard always had a more personal, intimate element to the story, and here McClane feels like he was transplanted into the story instead of being an integral part of it.

Speaking of McClane, Bruce Willis doesn't seem to be particularly enjoying himself this time around. McClane starts the movie off stalking his now grown up daughter, and only goes downhill from there. Whereas McClane used to be his enemy's equal, here he is reduced to a manchild, incapable of understanding what is going on around him. Indeed, we at times are left wondering if all McClane's previous adventures haven't rendered him brain damaged. Take, for example, a scene in which he is talking to a villain over a webcam. McClane puts his hand in front of the webcam when he wants to tell his partner something private, and is mocked when the villain tells him that covering the webcam doesn't mute the sound. Scenes like this are rampant in the film, and only serve to make us laugh at McClane, not with him. But hey, as long as a gun and the occassional vehicle will get the job done, why bother making him into anything resembling an intelligent human being?

Perhaps the biggest laugh in the film is one that must have made the filmmakers pale in dread. In any action franchise, the latest installment is only as good as your villain. So when an audience laughs at your villain's attempts at being menacing, you must realize you have a turkey on your hands. Timothy Olyphant seems like a good villain choice, but looks can be deceiving. In the scene where McClane and the villain, Thomas Gabriel, talk for the first time, Gabriel has just learned that someone he cares about has died. Looking visibly shaken, perhaps near tears, he shouts "You have no idea who I am or what I'm capable of!" Instead of coming across as menacing, he instead resembles a child whining at his parents after they've punished him for hitting his little brother. Add to this the information we learn about him throughout the film (he once worked for the government and threw a hissyfit when no one would listen to his report that someone could bring the country down via the same methods he eventually uses), and you have arguably one of the worst villains in recent film history.

The other new additions to the cast are Justin Long as a hacker, Kevin Smith (yes, that Kevin Smith) as Long's buddy Warlock, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Lucy McClane. Long is supposed to be the comic relief, but films this bad don't need comic relief, they are their own comic relief, so he's essentially a nothing element (made all the more apparent by the fact that we never get a reason why the bad guys want him dead so badly, or why the government care if he lives once they realize he has nothing to do with the attacks). Smith is cute as a grown man living in his mother's basement, but then again, cute and Die Hard are a hard mixture to swallow. Winstead, however, seems to be the only one who ever watched a Die Hard movie. She is perhaps the most interesting character in the film, and the least pitiable damsel in distress ever. If her father didn't show up to save her, she'd probably just save herself. Maybe a movie about her next time would be better than an aging, brain damaged John McClane.

There's really nothing here to recommend. The plot is poorly executed to the point of never feeling any tension. The characters are almost unanimously awful. And the PG-13 rating makes you realize how watered down it all is. I don't know that a string or profanities or more violent death scenes would have helped, but at least it might have made this feel a bit more like a Die Hard. In a summer of awful sequels, Live Free or Die Hard fights tooth and nails to stand atop a mountain of crap as the worst of the bunch.

Sicko

We remain the only first world country in the world without universal health care. That is the jumping off point for Sicko, the latest documentary from Michael Moore, but it is by no means the point of the film. Moore uses the health care system as a way of reminding us that we are all human beings and we are all in this together. If we don't come to grips with that fact we could be headed down a road that we can never come back from. It's a frightening and sad statement, but one with an underlying spark of hope. Regardless of how you feel about Michael Moore as a person, there's no denying that he is onto something pretty important this time around.

Moore works best when he is rallying against an idea or an institution rather than a person. Roger & Me used General Electric CEO Roger Smith as a symbol of corruption, a technique repeated with Charlton Heston in Bowling for Columbine. Switching gears, he attacked the President more than he attacked an idea in Fahrenheit 9/11, and the film suffered greatly for it. Thankfully there are no villains here, just ideas. Indeed, this is Moore's most restrained film by far. He is on no witch hunts, and aside from a trip to Guantanamo Bay, the film is devoid of any stunts. It is simply a look at something that is deeply flawed in America: our health care system.

The film offers numerous anecdotes from real hospital patients as proof of how distressing things have become. There's the man whose insurance wouldn't cover reattaching both his fingers he lost in an accident, so he had to choose which finger he liked more. There's the woman who couldn't pay for her hospital stay, so she was put in a cab and dropped off, still under heavy sedation, on a sidewalk in front of a free clinic. Then there's the mother who had full health care for her child. She rushed to the hospital when her kid was deathly ill, only to learn her insurance didn't cover that particular hospital. The child died on the way to the closest covered hospital. Now some people might be cynical enough to say "yeah, but what are we supposed to do, not pay our doctors?" To that Moore gives us a very long winded and strong answer.

Moore travels to Canada, to Great Britain, and to France. All have free health care. All have higher life expectancies. The doctors live off government pay, and they live very nicely (one doctor lives in a million dollar mansion). The patients are better off and are allowed to stay in the hospital as long as they need to without fear of being kicked out for lack of funds. In Great Britain they even pay for your ride home if you need a cab. We begin to see that these benefits go beyond health care. People don't have to pay for college, day care is almost free, and you can get a government paid helper to come to your house after you give birth and take care of everything from meals to laundry, free of charge to you. At times you think these places must be some imaginary utopia, not our allies and neighbors.

Usually Moore relies too heavily on inserting himself and his jokey gimmicks into his documentaries in order to get a rise out of you, but not this time. Moore is really barely seen, and it feels a lot like a traditional documentary. That is a wise choice on his part, as there is a lot here to digest without having to question the validity of his stunts. The whole thing is much more mannered and methodical, showing us exactly what is wrong and how we can fix it. Our health care doesn't have to be this bad, and that's the saddest part.

I know a lot of people have a hard time with Michael Moore, and I myself was a bit resistant to the film at first. I think he is usually an entertaining filmmaker, but a poor documentarian, letting his personality get in the way of the facts. Yet this film won me over completely by the end. It's engrossing, thought-provoking, and insightful. Moore has really opened up the audience potential for documentaries in the last few years, so I hope that trend holds for this film as well, because this isn't just Moore's most important documentary, but the most important film of the year. And also quite possibly the best.

1408

Stephen King tales are some of the most notoriously difficult stories to translate from print to screen. The only ones that seem to consistently work as movies are his short stories, having produced such films as Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption. 1408 is another one of King's short stories turned motion picture, and while it doesn't hit the heights of either of the aforementioned, it does work relatively well for most of its run time, and could probably be placed in the upper echelon of King adaptations.

Mike Enslin (John Cusack) is a paranormal researcher who writes books about the most haunted places in America. The only problem is he has found no real proof of an afterlife, and finds the idea of paranormal activity to be silly. So when he receives an anonymous postcard from the Dolphin Hotel warning him to stay away from room 1408, he takes it as a challenge. In spite of the warnings of the hotel manager (Samuel L. Jackson in a glorified cameo), Enslin shacks up for the night, only to discover that things may be more dangerous than he believed.

1408 is a throwback to the days when horror movies actually tried to scare you instead of shock you or gross you out. There is little violence, and no real blood or gore. Instead the film builds up suspense, bursting every so often with a good scare. Moments such as Enslin seeing a mirror of himself in the adjacent building's window are quite unsettling. Adding to the air of foreboding is the well-integrated flashbacks to the death of Enslin's young daughter. These moments ground the character in reality, as well as open up possible interpretations as to what exactly might be causing the increasingly disturbing occurrences in the room. The film also dwells quite a bit on some strong themes, notably coping with death. It gets pretty heavy for a horror movie, but fans of King will know this is par for the course in his writing. It blends well with the horror aspects, and makes the film feel more full as a result.

Cusack does a very good job of acting by himself for most of the run time. While he does overact a bit (his hissyfit with the refrigerator was a little too much), for the most part he makes you forget that he's the only real actor on screen. He's funny, sarcastic, frightened, angry, and seemingly every other emotion on the spectrum at some point. It's kind of a shame, then, that the film never quite knows what to do with him or his situation. For a good hour we are pretty engrossed in what is happening, but slowly it becomes apparent that the film just has a list of things it wants to show us, but no real idea of what to do with those things. The whole film just kind of sputters to an ending, with no real resolution or sense of closure. And for a second you almost think the film is going to go for the ultimate cop-out ending, but thankfully it avoids it.

Folks looking for some good scares won't be disappointed, and they might even be surprised at how deep the character of Enslin is. Yet in spite of some strong thematic material, the film fails to present us with any real feeling of direction. It just needed something more to make it all gel together better, some sort of overarching sense of purpose. Still, it's better than most horror films out these days, and any fans of Stephen King's works will likely be happy with this more intelligent translation of his writing than the majority of his adaptations.