THE STAND
M-O-O-N, that spells "Woohoo!"
So long, sprawling, and preposterously full-blown is this 1994 miniseries based on Stephen King's even longer, more sprawling, and more preposterously full-blown novel, to tackle it in a single review seems like a fool's errand. No matter, though, nobody ever said I wasn't up to THAT task...
The bad news is that a souped-up version of the flu, concocted in some underground U.S. lab, has escaped and is wiping out over 99% of the world's population. The good news is that the survivors get lots of free stuff! And soon, those survivors start getting messages in their dreams, summons from across the country to join one of two burgeoning camps - one led by a sweet, 106-year-old black woman in Nebraska, and one led by a creepy fella named Randall Flagg in (where else?) Las Vegas. The Nebraska camp, when it gets too big for one farm to fit (and there are more coming), moves on to Boulder (as in Colorado), while the Vegas camp - ruthless and efficient - is already halfway to getting its city on a paying basis. And what do you think Flagg has in store for Boulder?
King wrote the screenplay for this himself, keeping faithful to the book's four-act structure, resulting in (duh) a four-part miniseries. There had been ideas for a production of this book for a long time - George Romero was interested once, though probably didn't like the idea of being confined to the only medium that could feasibly portray it, television (directing here is the Stephen King house director, Mick Garris). As you might expect, this is one filmed version that's very faithful to the source material.
This means that many of the head-scratchers in the book are present in the miniseries as well. What about Europe, Asia...hell, Canada? It stands to reason that with this many survivors in the States, you'd still have, what, 20 million survivors worldwide? Do they get their own Flagg and own Mother Abigail, or do they just sit this Ultimate Good/Ultimate Evil battle out? And why would people be picked for one side or the other? It's fairly clear that mostly bad people go to Vegas, and mostly good people go to Nebraska/Boulder. But can't they decide for themselves? What if they feel really bad about being bad? Or what if they've always been good, get the summons from Nebraska and decide to be bad for once? It's like Judgement (capital J quite intended), no appeal, no second chances, except they're still alive. Doesn't this usually happen when you're dead? Oh hell, maybe these were answered in the book, it's been seven years since I've read it.
Still, the creation of this barren (but intact) world loaded with desiccated carcasses is a marvel, stirring the imagination. When the Nebraska camp moves on to Boulder and tries to get that city back on-line, the process is of course not as in depth as in the book, but it's fun to explore. Committees have to be dispatched to haul off corpses, others to go into homes and business and unplug everything. What job would YOU volunteer for? How'd you liked to be picked for corpse detail? When emptying apartment buildings, did they just dump the bodies off of the balconies, or did they carry them down the stairs? Did people go house to house, taking the coolest stuff for their "own" houses that they commandeered, leaving little for late arrivals? I love wondering about stuff like that.
Yes, there are thematic and plot details that are striking in varying degrees, but the center of this story is its cast of characters. There are a lot of them, so hang on, I'm gonna get through them one at a time here.
Gary Sinise, just before he broke big in Forrest Gump, gets the closest thing to a lead role here as Stu Redman, a small-town hick from East Texas who is among the first to be exposed to the superflu, certainly the first to be demonstrably immune to it. Sinise does what he can and makes his character likeable and compelling despite King sticking him with some really terrible dialogue ("I heard your guitar...sounds so sweet."), and a weird tendency to keep identifying himself as a hick ("Country don't mean dumb").
Molly Ringwald is Frannie Goldsmith, a young twentysomething who hooks up with Redman soon after they meet. Ringwald has never been much of an actress, but doesn't need to be here; the only interesting thing done with her character is when it's revealed that she's pregnant with what will turn out to be the first post-superflu baby. Immunity never seemed to be genetic before; will the kid be affected?
Corin Nemec plays Harold Lauder, who's about eighteen and hails from the same town Frannie's from. He's had a crush on her since he was in the eighth grade or so, and when they take off together to find other survivors, he develops a sort of sweet but almost nasty kind of jealousy. This is the first girl who ever actually wanted his company (now that he is, for a while, the last man on earth); it's easy to understand his attachment and the unhealthy bent it takes. (Trust me, I know) (Harold was a really fat kid in the book and over the course of his cross-country journey and corpse-hauling in Boulder, worked himself pretty lean. Nemec's a little thin, but no matter.) Harold is the most complicated character in the story, its tragic hero of sorts, and I don't think Nemec is up to the task, overdoing just about everything.
Laura San Giacomo also overplays as Nadine Cross, but here, I think it works. Nadine has basically promised herself to be Flagg's bride, but she first has work to do in Boulder. I can't say I agree with the decision to frequently put makeup on her that ages her about ten years, but she convincingly walks that line between marginal flakiness and sort of bad-girl charm. She never seems evil, just, as is later stated by one character, misled, and probably complicit in her own deception. I'd have picked somebody foxier for the role, considering that her skill as a seductress is central to the role, but hey, eye of the beholder and all that.
Introducing a hilariously banal pop song into the proceedings that's repeated ad infinitum throughout the work, Larry Underwood (played by Adam Storke) is a rock musician who's just on the verge of breaking big when the world, uh, breaks. That's bad for him, but it's also good; he'd got himself into a lot of debt with a bad crowd, and they all conveniently died. Storke makes the most of a role that isn't written with quite the complexity as in the novel; here, he's mostly just a guy who stuff happens to, not a guy who does things. (I guess that's what they call a "reactive" role)
Miguel Ferrer seems like the most obvious standout as Lloyd Henreid, a violent criminal who is made Flagg's second-in-command. Ferrer is quiet and kind of sad; this is a character who does evil not because it's fun or because he lacks a conscience, but because he can no longer imagine doing anything else. There's self-loathing and depression under the surface here; every time Ferrer is on screen, everybody else becomes nearly unnoticeable. He's not pushing them out or chewing scenery, he's just making them look like clumsy idiots in comparison. We've seen Ferrer in a lot of roles, mostly as villains, but this is the one that most makes me realize that he's one the best character actors we've got.
Also standing out - to my surprise! - is Rob Lowe as Nick Andros, a deaf-mute (that term, and "deaf & dumb", are both tossed around with refreshing disregard for political correctness) who shows more kindness than anyone else here, although at one point he is prepared to shoot one asshole who recently beat the crap out of him. I think just about every male my age has a deep, unconscious hatred for Lowe. It's because when he reached the height of his popularity (especially amongst girls our age), it was when just what those girls thought and who they were impressed with actually mattered for the first time. And this was before most of us learned not to be threatened by crushes on the unattainable. Anyway, there's your pop psychology lesson for the day. Suffice it to say that for a guy who only gets lines in a couple of scenes in dreams, Lowe loads up his character with not just texture and nuance, but a strong sense of actually having had to deal with this all his life. Ever notice how when most actors get a role like this, they usually play it like they just can't believe the rest of the world has trouble communicating with them? Note the all-too-practiced way he first flips out his sketchpad on which he writes out the things he cannot say, or the way the gestures (never sign language, since nobody else here knows it, so what's the point?) he uses are clearly second nature to him.
A little less compelling is Bill Fagerbakke as Tom Cullen, a big, sweet and mildly retarded small-town boy who is Nick's first companion. The relationship between the two is a joy to behold; Nick is unable to even use his sketchpad, since Cullen is illiterate. But Cullen is sort of a warm and fuzzy, idealized kind of retarded character; never prone to tantrums, always self-sufficient and (creatively) independent, never likely to cause anybody the slightest inconvenience. He's obviously meant to be slow-witted and cuddly, but that's about it - he's like a less annoying, flesh-tone Barney. What's done with this character - the task that befalls him in the latter half of the miniseries - is more interesting than the character himself.
Matt Frewer plays Trashcan Man, a complete lunatic pyromaniac who is summoned by Flagg for unstated work in the desert. He only gets a few lines, but they're repeated about a million times each as he cries out his devotion to his new master and fights off hallucinations of childhood tormentors. There were things I liked about this performance; particularly, the almost masturbatory frenzy with which he "jacks up" a missile to be loaded onto a fighter plane. But I dunno, he doesn't seem like he could even feed himself, let alone walk from Des Moines to Las Vegas unaided. It's hard to do anything interesting with somebody this far gone, and Trashcan Man is very far gone indeed.
So, the big standouts are Ferrer and Lowe.
There are a number of less prominent characters that deserve mention. Take Ray Walston as an elderly man who likes the company of people again but figures that the old civilization failed and shouldn't be rebuilt, or Shawnee Smith as a more-than-slightly deranged small-town girl who meets Nick and Tom but, for reasons soon made clear, is not invited to join them. (note: this scene was filmed on a Utah soundstage that can be seen in a number of other movies, like Halloween 4 and 5) Peter Van Norden plays an aging cowboy-type who somehow manages to find his way onto the Boulder government council, and Ossie Davis and Kellie Overbey play two people in the Boulder camp who are asked to perform a very dangerous task. (although just what her relationship is with Larry that he is so put off by her selection, I don't know)
But what is all this without the two forces that are drawing people to them?
Ruby Dee plays Mother Abigail, who has by all appearances been selected by God to lead all these good people to Boulder to rebuild from there. She's a lot like Yoda (crusty but benevolent, funny but wise), but with a heart; Yoda always seemed like a cranky ol' bastard, while Abigail has an obvious love for the people who have come to her for the salvation many of them never knew they wanted. Dee is under a lot of old-age makeup, and it's not all that good, but it gets the point across because Dee makes us believe it. When she questions how she's handling her role, it is in regards to things that were right in front of us all along but never seemed out of place.
And finally, Jamey Sheridan plays Randall Flagg. There are performances good, bad, and mediocre all over the place, but no one character in this show was more important to cast well than Flagg, and, well, they blew it. Flagg is all about charisma and menace; Sheridan has the former (note his short-lived role on Chicago Hope - were there any long-lived roles on that show? I haven't watched in years), but awfully close to zero of the latter, only getting the occasional creepy moment. A couple of cheesy morphs and a hilariously non-frightening temper tantrum late in the film don't help either; Flagg is at his scariest when we're allowed to wonder just what he isn't capable of (his best scene is when he punishes Sam Raimi for botching a task he'd been assigned). There are a lot of actors who would have pulled off the job better; maybe Clint Eastwood (my pick) would have been a little out of the price range for a TV project. But take, say, Colm Feore (who would go on to play a similar role in King's own Storm Of The Century) or even, uh, Billy Zane.
There's story to spare, theme all over the place, ideas and texture and grandeur, and of course it's more faithful to the book than any theatrical release could possibly have been. But characters, for both the miniseries and the book, are what this is all about.
And as for that ending? Well, it's that same way-beyond-a-mere deus-ex-machina from the book. It puts the deus in deus-ex-machina. I'm still not decided on how much I hate that. King has sure botched some good books with bad endings (Needful Things, It), and when I read this one, I just about threw it across the room. Nowadays I'm not so sure - this movie is, after all, about Ultimate Good and Ultimate Evil putting their pawns in place, and how else can it conclude but a checkmate? But still, it's not exactly a rush to see everything building and building and building and finally cumulate in...well, I won't spoil it, but damn, you might wish I had to spare you the agony.
Overall, though, it's well worth the six hours (yikes!) on video (it was an eight-hour miniseries - ah, I remember waiting for each installment with near-frenzied anticipation, so long ago...1994...it was like another life...grr...1994...five fucking years...wuh? Oh, never mind.). It's long, yes, but it's good. Watch for Joe Bob Briggs, John Landis, Kathy Bates, Ed Harris, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Garris and of course, Stephen King.