Stephen King's Desperation (2006)

Stephen King Movie

I have always been a huge fan of Stephen King his books that have been made into movies are generally true to the book and therefore I am never disappointed. Working with Amazon is easy and a pleasant experience. August 9, 2008

Pathetic.

Before I begin the onslaught of how truly awful this was, I wanted to see thie first review of this maybe for a eye shot of adrenaline to get the fingers working, and I really needed a laugh, this "Dr. Dolphin" character (Top 1000 Reviewer) giving Desperation FIVE STARS...hahhahahahahahaahahha, (oh my gut, oh, oh, stop, stop, hahaha) Quote: "The acting: This is what makes the movie." NO, NO, please believe me the acting did not make anything, but you wanting to howl. Oh wow and I thought it was interesting seeing African Americans walking around in Bethel, Maine last summer, indeed this is the formidable icing on the cake.

You want blood, sweat and tears on a review, and not to mamsy-pamsy it to the masses on amazon to get 100's of helpful votes, wherein a person dissents from the majority: then here you go. 2006's 'Desperation' like many amazing king novels which are just absolutely butchered (Tommy Knockers, The Stand, Needful Things, The Dark-Half, etc.), 'Desperation' starts out interestingly enough, I guess. I mean on the lonesome road from nowhere to somewhere in the middle of the land that God forgot, we can place the wooden, and absolutely untalented Henry Thomas (E.T.) in a vehicle, with a conversation that was so unmotivating, I thought, "wait, wait, this has to be a Stephen King based movie." The two carry on this horrible relationship through the first twenty minutes of the movie, and you are praying to your own personal God that either one of them gets mauled to stop the insanity. Ron Pearlman plays this overacted, possessed cop, and during his interactions with the unknowing travelers, his face becomes more grim, as the possession slowly eats away at the cocoon. (see friends, this entity takes control of the host body, and slowly, evidentally eats away at it, therefore each new body finds more feed, that being the unknowing travelers.)

I thought perhaps the superb Tom Skerritt (Picket Fences, Contact, A River Runs Through It) [to name my favorites] could help the overacting and pathetic dialog, while holding on to some semblance while an ensemble forms in the local town of Desperation's police station. It doesn't. It tries to, but what movie doesn't try overtly to become cohesive. The grounding is formulaic, and it's petty. Ok, so let's go back to that acting made the movie comment by doctor death there. Amazing? To whom, Helen Keller? Shane Haboucha, playing the young boy David in the film, who suffers tremendous loss, did a really good job, as he UNDOUBTEDLY carried the entire film, however his acting was pushed, rushed and so scripted, there was no emotional creativity in the least. (His crying scenes were as paltry as Culkin trying to be something other than Kevin McCallister)

Desperation is what you scream out during the last scenes of the movie, because the name is fitting considering how rancid the cutting is. I wont give anything away, but the ending in itself is enough to make most film lovers drop their jaws in horror at exactly why the director would allow such complete absurdity in a film, and a voiceover that you thought would be from a man behind the curtain who you aren't supposed to pay atttention to. While it had its moments, it never found a leg to stand on from the opening scene. (Argento anyone?)

AWFUL, but an extra star because the boy did give it a go. April 6, 2008

True to Novel

This movie, like only a few others was true to the original novel. If you are a Stephen King fan. Enough said December 26, 2007

Decent

This is a decent movie, but is no where near the book, since it leaves out the majority of what the book was based on, the characters and their stories. Also, alot is abridged overall, which leaves it feeling to rushed and tenuous throughout. It is like a long Twilight Zone episode more than a big movie or film. One thing for those who are not religious, you may be turned off by the constant "God" theme that runs throughout the film. Even for religious people, you may find it annoying - it feels to preachy to me. November 26, 2007

Too Biblical to be fascinating

The book was interesting especially in the descriptions of the decaying nature of Tack as embodied in the sheriff and any other being afterwards. To show it in flipping pictures has a lot less effect. The pangs of conscience and intellect of the main opponent, the one who is going to destroy Tack, or rather to bury him or it alive in the underground mine is less convincing on the screen. Yet the film is strange, just as much as the book was, because Stephen King inverts some essential elements of his vision. For him, over and over again, evil is on the surface and causes damage underground, in the doppelganger world that is supposed to support us and yet is obliged to bear the great destructions we impose onto it. Here evil exists underground and has to be buried alive back into that underground from which human greed has managed to get it out in the most brutal way: mining and exploiting Chinese who are transformed into some un-respected cattle. This simplicity of the relation between the surface and the underground world is surprising for Stephen King who has often accustomed us to more complex relations, like in the Dark Tower. That makes the film slightly superficial and standing only on the frightening leg. We would have liked to be terrorized in our minds more than out superficial nervous system. Apart from that it is well built and directed though the emphasis on God, of course the good old Christian God, is definitely excessive and it should have been widened up to a universal God, ,especially in the present period where some are willing to start religious wars against anyone who is of a different creed or faith.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
November 4, 2007

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