Thursday, September 8, 2016

The Fog (2005) rated PG-13 for violence, disturbing images, and brief sexuality



I watched this film after watching the original version of The Fog.  I had high hopes that this this movie would at least be good if not great.  I was disappointed.
Like the original version of The Fog this movie follows the story of a small town named Antonio Bay this time located on the coast of Oregon as opposed to California.  As this is a more "modern" take on the original film the event that happen in this film coincide with the unveiling of a statue celebrating the town's founders as opposed to the centennial of the founding of the town.  Elizabeth (played by Maggie Grace) is in fact a resident of Antonio Bay it's just that she has spent time living outside of the town.   Elizabeth's boyfriend Nick (played by Tom Welling) is a resident as well and owns the boat the Seagrass (just as in the original picture).
After returning to Antonio Bay, Elizabeth is inexplicably afflicted with fainting spells that manifest very inconveniently to her but  conveniently for the plot.  As a result of her fainting spells, she finds the diary of one of the founding fathers named Malone and thus finds out that Antonio Bay was started with blood money from a leper colony.
The leader of the leper colony named Blake had attempted to purchase an area near Antonio Bay for his people to live in peace.  The founding fathers were bothered by the thought of a leper colony being "so close" to Antonio Bay and so they had locked the lepers on their ship and stolen their money and possessions.  The ship wrecked off of the coast  and there were no survivors.
Elizabeth is horrified and tries to tell her boyfriend Nick about the diary.  He doesn't seem to care because he is preoccupied with strange events including mysterious deaths and an unnatural fog.  Elizabeth's fainting spells don't seem to disturb Nick in the least but that is probably because he seems to be unaware given the other events happening.
And so we have the continuation of similarities to the original film in that we have a small group of residents desperately trying to survive the night.  This picture takes a turn in Elizabeth in more ways than previously mentioned.  As it turns out she is apparently the reincarnated wife of Blake or at least that's what she believes.  Oddly enough she doesn't seem to be the least bit disturbed by this.  I should have guessed that she doesn't really care for her boyfriend as evidenced by her previously leaving Antonio Bay for about six months and her seeming negative attitude about returning until she finds out that she is Blake's reincarnated wife.  Whatever.  The film ends with her joyfully being reunited with Blake (which is great for her and Blake but what about Nick?)
All in all this film was disappointing at best.  The cast wasn't horrible but they weren't as good as the original cast.  The plot was not good.  The fainting spells plot device was annoying at best.  There were some decent special effects but nothing particularly special.  It just felt like this film missed the point of the original film.  At least there wasn't boasting that their film was so much better than the original unlike some other remakes.


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