The Stand is a masterpiece of fiction written by a writer who has see-sawed between greatness and terribleness over and over and similarly the adaptions of his works are either lauded as great masterpieces or seen as utter failures. It's sort of an endless ride for Stephen King, where he either has his name attached to something terrible - like the adaption of the Dark Tower - or something great - like this version of the Stand.
Now I've gotten my gushing over with, lets do the review shall we?
We start where the story is meant to start, with the escape from Project Blue's facility and the escape of Tube Neck/Captain Trips and from there it is a "very" faithful adaption of the source material, very little is cut for the necessity of it and the portrayals are - for the most part - perfectly done.
I would give it a 10/10 for just the portrayals of people like Tom, Nick and Stu, but I have to take some points away.
Larry Underwood's character is given short shrift in this version, not being "as" much of a "bad guy" as he starts out at (he begins as a successful singer who just broke into the big time and has a big coke addiction with debt collectors on his back and a penchant for using and discarding people he doesn't need) and the change begins in the relationship he has with Rita Blakemoor, a pill popping older woman and fellow survivor of the bioweapon, the two strike up a friendship that becomes a sexual one. She eventually overdoses while out of New York and it is the beginning of Larry's true character revolution. I know that in this version Rite and Nadine were merged and for an adaption with little real changes in the full plot, I can accept it being like that, but the death was what started Larry into being a decent man as his shame over not burying Rita weighed on him.
Outside of that it's virtually perfect, no problems even with the dated effects and somewhat cheesy ending montage, it is as close to a faithful adaption of the source material we've ever got and it's all we need.
Now I've gotten my gushing over with, lets do the review shall we?
We start where the story is meant to start, with the escape from Project Blue's facility and the escape of Tube Neck/Captain Trips and from there it is a "very" faithful adaption of the source material, very little is cut for the necessity of it and the portrayals are - for the most part - perfectly done.
I would give it a 10/10 for just the portrayals of people like Tom, Nick and Stu, but I have to take some points away.
Larry Underwood's character is given short shrift in this version, not being "as" much of a "bad guy" as he starts out at (he begins as a successful singer who just broke into the big time and has a big coke addiction with debt collectors on his back and a penchant for using and discarding people he doesn't need) and the change begins in the relationship he has with Rita Blakemoor, a pill popping older woman and fellow survivor of the bioweapon, the two strike up a friendship that becomes a sexual one. She eventually overdoses while out of New York and it is the beginning of Larry's true character revolution. I know that in this version Rite and Nadine were merged and for an adaption with little real changes in the full plot, I can accept it being like that, but the death was what started Larry into being a decent man as his shame over not burying Rita weighed on him.
Outside of that it's virtually perfect, no problems even with the dated effects and somewhat cheesy ending montage, it is as close to a faithful adaption of the source material we've ever got and it's all we need.