SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Supelice Dreadfully Boring

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

bitomurder Having read the book, I can say that The Stand is a fairly decent adaptation for what it is and the time in which it came out. A good many of the cast portray their characters well including Gary Sinise as Stu Redman, Rob Lowe as Nick Andros, and the standout performance of Mother Abigail by Ruby Dee who was everything I wanted out of her. She WAS Mother Abigail. In fact, most of the actors portrayals of these characters are good enough that when I picture the characters from the book in my head, these actors are the faces of them. The story is much more dark, sexual, and brutal than what you get from a TV show produced in the mid 90's, but the key details and basic storyline of Stephen King's greatest work are still there and it is much more accessible than the 1100 page monster of a novel. While the novel would take a multitude of hours to reconquer, I can revisit the world whenever I would like in the much easier 6 hour time frame of the series. In the nearly 40 years since its release, Hollywood has tried to put together a big budget adaptation of this great American epic, but have yet to get passed the initial planning stages. So, for now, The Stand mini-series is all we have and I must say that I am fine with that.

doctirderp ill keep it short. the first episode is great. good pacing, suspense, and good backstory to give you information. however, after the first episode, the rest of the 3 episodes are slow, terribly paced, and the things people do just don't make any damn sense.i want you to know the ending, i really do. if anything, just to prevent you from wasting your time. a maniac, who seems out of place the entire series, tries to set off an explosion but some weird spirit of an old prophet stops him. it doesn't make sense as you read it here, and it makes even less sense in the context of the film. also, consider the prophet told 4 of the characters to go to the town to stop the bomb going off...but it was worthless, they didn't do anything. a whole episode about some epic journey, where many of them even died, just for some stupid spirit voice to stop a maniac who just randomly decided to bomb the city. its terrible, absolutely terrible.

dewwy321 The first time I saw this was back in 94 when I was 12 years old. At the time I thought it was great. It wasn't until the 2000's before I saw it again and I have re-watched it from time to time. The first two hours holds up well for me. I always enjoy seeing the start of any plague movie or TV miniseries. It's interesting to see what unfolds in the story. By today's standards, The Stand might seem too timid or slow to build to anything. For me, I enjoy watching what happens around these characters and how they react. Seeing entire society crumble before you is pretty cool. Where the Stand starts to fall apart is when more focus is put on good vs evil. Good vs evil is really the main plot of the story. It really all goes down hill around the two hour mark. That's when the plague story ends. Not only that, the story starts to fall apart, characters begin to get annoying, the acting seems to get worse and worse, jumps in the story start to happen, continuity is poor and the excitement is over. It started out as a story that could have gone anywhere and then pigeon holes itself. Overall, I think it's worth a watch, but don't be surprised if your interest in the miniseries wanes.

BA_Harrison A virulent man-made strain of flu accidentally escapes from a top-security army facility and rapidly spreads around the world, killing millions. A small percentage of immune survivors find themselves courted by the forces of good (lead by aged Mother Abigail Freemantle) and evil (commanded by the devilish Randall Flagg) in a final battle for dominion over the Earth.At nearly six hours long, Mick Garris's TV mini-series of Stephen King's chunky post-apocalyptic epic is an arduous journey to undertake, maudlin sentimentality and religious pondering frequently making the road very hard-going; many, mayhaps, will fall by the wayside. It all starts off promisingly enough, with a terrific, truly chilling first half in which the last of the living—a wide ranging group of well-drawn characters performed by an impressive cast—are left to wander a world strewn with corpses, looking for fellow survivors; however, it all goes a bit awry in the latter half, which is laden with corn (and I'm not talking about the crops surrounding Mother Abigail's home!).Increasingly hammy performances (worst offenders: Jamey Sheridan as Flagg and Matt Frewer as Trashcan Man), moments of unintentional hilarity, and a sense of the absurd proliferate matters, with a ridiculous anti-climax that sees God himself saving the day, obliterating his enemy by reaching down a giant sparkly hand to detonate an atomic bomb. No, really! 5.5 out of 10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.