Wednesday, May 22, 2024

King Me: Stephen King's The Stand (1994) *Part 2*

 All plans to do this in 4 days like how the Mini-Series ran pretty much ended by the next morning.
That said, let's keep looking at the Mini-Series with Part 2.

To keep up, see the first part the first part here.


Part 2- The Dreams is all about two things.

Introducing New People to our Cast and moving said People to a new location.
That's pretty much it.

So, we get Molly Ringwald leaving home (after Scrubs Dad died) with Definitely Not Her Boyfriend.

The Rock Star goes to New York City (after his Mom died) to see the Waitress we met once.

Instead, he meets Laura San Giacomo (an upgrade, to be fair).
They both leave the city, while she seems seduced by a dark power...
A new Character named Trashcan Man (Matt Frewer in yet another Garris FilmGarris Film).

In typical fashion, he's crazy.  He sets oil reservoirs on fire and is called to Vegas by a strange voice.
Said Voice is that of Randall Flagg, who we next see breaking Miguel Ferrer (who was arrested in Part 1) out of Prison.

He agrees to be Flagg's Lieutenant.

To be fair, I'd follow someone with a mullet that glorious too!
Less glorious are the adventures of Rob Lowe (a deaf mute) and...sigh...Lenny from Of Mice an Men.

He's actually Tom Cullen (played by the man who voices 'Patrick Star') and it's...something.
I'm curious how the 2020 Mini-Series handles him.

They also briefly meet Shawnee Smith (playing a more crazy version of Audrey Horne) too.
Gary Sinise is free of the CDC and meets up with some folks, including Ringwald and Seriously, He's Not Her Boyfriend Guy.

They go to Colorado.
In Vegas, Flagg has assembled a group of Lieutenants, although we only saw the Introduction of Ferrer and Frewer (Not Attorneys at Law).

He's up to...something.
The main group has met up with the Old Lady from their Dreams and go to Colorado.

They see a group of people- including Sinise and company- arrive as Part 2 ends.
Unfortunately, this Part either sinks or swims based on how invested you are in the Characters- especially the new ones.

For me, I'm more interested in the Story and very little progresses here.
Yes, you do need a part in a Story like this where people travel from Point A to Point B.  The trick is to make that part interesting AND/OR make the Characters great.

I don't dislike the Characters- other than the representation of Cullen- but I'm not super-invested in them at this point.

As it is, Part 2 is just them making bigger groups and traveling.

Like I said, it's a necessary part of the Story...but man is it not that interesting.
You have Flagg around and we only get TWO SCENES of him.

Don't worry, we get lots of Cullen, so I get to keep making this face for most of the 90 minutes...

Next up, Part 3 hopefully moves the actual Plot forward and delivers.  I'm giving it a chance!

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