Saturday, February 6, 2010

A Written Review: The Green Mile


The Green Mile was one of the most fascinating supernatural films based off of a Stephen King novel I’ve ever seen. The expert writing, beautiful technical execution, and amazing creative talent made this film a must-see experience.
The technical aspect of this film was awe inspiring. One shot in particular sticks in my head. The opening shot of the film where we see the various members of the community slowly walking through the fields looking for the two missing girls. The shot literally breath-taking and I watched it several times just to let it sink in. The lighting was also impressive. The use of shadows was in the prison was absolutely amazing.
The writing of this film was also extremely impressive. I myself have never read the novel The Green Mile so I cannot honestly say how closely the film follows the book. However, the film’s adaption was absolutely impeccable. If it weren’t for the fact that I had prior knowledge of the novel’s existence I would not have known this film was adapted from a book (which is, in my opinion, the mark of a truly great adaption).
Finally, the acting was absolutely superb. Michael Clark Duncan gives the performance of his career and Tom Hanks, as always, brings a real humanity to a role that some other might have found difficult to pull off.
I enjoyed the film The Green Mile to such an extent that I actually didn’t turn off the film until after the credits have rolled out of sheer reverence for the film I had just witnessed. This films aesthetic value was beyond explanation and the film should be viewed by anyone in love with this great art we call “Film.”

1 comment:

  1. I didn't like it, sorry.

    It's not that I don't like Stephen King, he's one of my favorite authors. And it's not that I don't like adaptations of King's books, I loved The Shining, Shawshank Redemption, Misery, Apt Pupil, Carrie, Stand by Me, The Dead Zone and a lot more I'm sure I'm forgetting about. I love the actors and they all did a great job (speaking of, have you seen Sam Rockwell's other Oscar worthy performance in Moon yet?).

    So why didn't I like it? Well, being ten minutes shy of The Return of the King's running time didn't help. So if nothing else, the length and editing definitely killed it for me. The art direction was fantastic but the direction was not. Frank Darabon always shoots scenes on the nose, no subtext nothing underneath and King's works are all about subtext (The Dark Tower Series is told almost entirely with subtextual allusions). Now if the actors added the subtext (ala Shawshank) it might be a different story (pun intended) but the story is presented in a boring and plain manner.

    Of Mice and Men does the emotion better. To Kill a Mocking Bird did the message better and Shawshank did the wrongfully imprisoned story better. All in all I felt like I was watching lesser versions of great movies.

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