This film is one of the few films that doesn't have talking robots or the Rock in it that actually made it over to Thailand. I missed it in the theaters on its first run but for some reason, it came back a week ago and was still in the cinema yesterday. Me and my friend were the only people in the theater :)
This movie is a belated sequel to The Shining which of course is one of the most famous films of all time. I was unaware of the fact that Stephen King had written this sequel back in 2013 because books, much like films, don't really make their way to where I live in Asia.
I was enthusiastic to see this film but was kind of let down as I didn't really find it at all scary and I feel as though the story (whether or not it is true to the book or not I am not aware) relies on the characters of the first story for shock and awe entirely too much.
Ewan McGregor plays the role of a grown up Danny Torrence who was the "Red-rum" kid in the original.
We are made aware of this through a series of really nicely done flashbacks where they found an actress who looks almost exactly like Shelley Duvall. Grown up Danny is a troubled alcoholic adult who still has "the Shine" but is unable to control it.
He ends up meeting other people with his ability rather rapidly and a story unfolds where he has to stop the evil people who also have this ability. If this seems like a spoiler take it easy, it is in the trailer and is spelled out in the first 10 minutes of the film.
I feel as though director Mike Flanagan had a tough job to do here as he not only directed the film, but also wrote the screenplay and edited the final cut. He wanted to incorporate some aspects of Stanley Kubrick's 1980 masterpiece, but not directly copy it. This couldn't have been an easy task at all.
In the end, I feel as though a lot of the magic that existed in The Shining is lost in this, as the baddies are inexplicably evil and it isn't really clear as to what it is that is driving their nefarious ways or how it is that they have come to control their abilities. You may recall that Danny's powers in The Shining was actually a minor issue in the film, as most of it focused on the eventual madness of Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson.)
While I realize that they couldn't simply directly copy the story of The Shining, the way we are focusing on the powers of this rather large group of individuals almost made it feel like another superhero movie...and we already have enough of those.
from the official [Warner Bros](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjmJDM5pRKbUlVIzDYYWb6g) channelTo be fair, I don't know what I was really expecting from this film. I guess you could say that since I am such a fan of the original I may have set the bar a bit high and that was the reason that I was let down.
If you have not seen The Shining I believe you will appreciate this film a great deal more than if you have seen it. I guess the film is OK, but I just didn't find it original or very entertaining and I spent a great deal of the movie feeling bored. I nearly started to play with my phone in the cinema and that is a good sign for me that the director missed the mark.
