When this movie came out, I thought it looked pretty bad. The idea seemed silly, the CGI I had seen looked awful, and the acting looked bad. When we decided to get it just a few days ago, my opinions were exactly the same. Then we watched the movie. The CGI was actually worse than I thought it would be (it was ALMOST Xena-bad, but not quite). About half the actors did a really good job, the other half were bad - and the good ones waited 'til the last half to get good. The idea actually turned out to be a pretty good one.
The premise is that in a small town a fog (or mist, get it?) rolls in after a terrible storm, which shuts down much of the power. A bunch of people, ignoring this regularly occurring and perfectly harmless weather pattern, go to the store to get some supplies. While there, an old guy runs in, covered in blood, saying that there's something IN the mist that attacked people. This causes people to barricade themselves in the store. The mist is now totally enveloping the town, and you can't see 2 feet out the window. Then really terrible things start happening.
I thought the premise was "there's stuff in the mist - get away from it or fight it!" I was wrong. It was clear that the mist was bad, not clear that there was stuff in it. This lead to the premise actually being "theres stuff in the mist? And only you saw it? Bullshit - I dont believe you, you're a jerk," and "The reason there's stuff in the mist is that god hates us because we're not good enough!" In other words, the movie was actually about people's reactions to the unknown - mostly fear.
For the most part, the reactions of some were quite realistic. People didn't instantly fight for the lives of others (they did eventually, but the initial reactions were more along the lines of "Oh my god! Oh my god! I need to sit down! Ahhh!") which I thought was good. It made the unbelievable situation somewhat more believable.
The movie was a b-movie, plain and simple. Or rather, it would be. 'B-movie' will be the thought of anyone watching it. It was mine, it was everyone else's who watched the movie with me. That changes. The last 10 minutes of the movie are amazingly intense, highly emotional - I'd actually say Oscar- worthy (if such a movie could possibly get an Oscar). It was disturbing, and spirit-crushing, and an overall brilliant ending. It changes the entire story and mood of the movie at the last minute giving you absolutely no time to prepare yourself or recover from it before the end.
One complaint is the CGI. It was bad, and they relied on it way too much. The fact that the main focus was mist SHOULD have made the threat very unclear. They brought the threat(s) into the light, despite the mist, which kinda replaced the realistic "fear of the unknown" with a more corny "fear of that ridiculous looking thing." I would have preferred they never saw anything that was happening to them, and it stayed that way all throughout. Also, the explanation as to how/why everything happened was a little lame, and seemed kinda tacked on as a political jab, but I never read the original story to know if it was always like that or if it was the screen-writer's own idea.
The original story was by Stephen King - hence the whole 'fear' thing - but he did not write the screenplay. As mentioned, I never read it, but apparently - as it's just a short story as opposed to a novel - it leaves a LOT of details out. The object of fear is very unclear, the ending is unresolved, some of the major conflicts were not there, etc. I dunno which I would prefer. I would like the fear to be unfounded/unclear, but at the same time, I liked those conflicts. I guess I'll have to give it a read before I make a judgment on that.
3 / 5 - Not amazing - it would have had a lower mark, but that ending is actually really good. Probably should have been a 2.5, but I'm feeling generous.