Well, dear stranger, i quitte feel the same. I openned the book by mistake, because i got the translated version on my home and the tittle was quitte unfitted to the original. Btw i ended it last weak.
Today i was like, well lets try the movie and compare both works. And at almost 2/3 of the movie, I was kinda dissappoited.
I was thincking,,,, where the hell are the references to bees? what appened to Al and the bulling think in his last job? After all, the last thing are the main reasong of Jack and Overlock.
Appart of the story, im quitte conviced that the only that fits is Jack Nicholson. And damm, only by his performance seeing the movie is more than enough.
Well, the movie also have good thing, even though as after reading the book the movie seems quitte lost, like jack´s performance, the music and some camera angles.
In the end, the movie is more or less good. i was expecting so much and at the end was kinda sad of what it could be.
A little edit; Why the f*** did they change the numer of the room, from 217 to 237? And why isnt wendy blond?
Review by DRNKMNKYBlockedParent2016-06-06T19:17:46Z
Well, after having finally read the book and watching the movie again I have to say that it, the movie, could have been quite a lot better and that there are a lot of weak aspects to it. Therefore I altered my rating from 8 to 7. This is mainly because, and I know a lot of his fans won't like to hear it, I think Kubrick left a lot of potential untouched:
- The casting is mediocre, clearly the people involved didn't read the book of King. While Nicholson fits the bill perfectly IHMO (and on this point I strongly disagree with King who calls Nicholson a mismatch), Wendy and Ullmann are so far off that it is laughable. While Ullmann is a support character only and the sloppiness can be forgiven, Wendy is one of the main protagonists and its a shame that no better match than Shelley Duvall was found because she just does not fit the movie!
- Why Kubrick opted to kill Halloran will be beyond me forever as well as the fact why he let's Wendy get of without so much as a single scratch. I think King's version in the book is much better and I think it is also the much more believable one.
- A lot of small (but important to the story) details are omitted. While this is of course normally to a certain degree, I think Kubrick made quite a few bad choices as to what details to skip. Because of that it seems to the audience that the hotel possesses Jack the moment he starts working there which is a so much weaker version than the gradual descent into madness as described by King. Also, one never feels Wendy's and Danny's love for their husband / father, which is absolute and devoted beside all his weaknesses.
- And last but not least the ending is way weaker than it could be. Give the book a try and see (or better, read...) for yourself what King describes. Kubrick's idea with the mace is OK, but I think King's hedge animals that already attack Halloran on his way to the Overlook are much more suspenseful and the exploding boiler resulting in the burning down of the Overlook is the much more satisfying end then letting Jack simply frees to dead.
For all these aspects and because of the fact that movie feels drawn out, especially at the beginning, I totally get that King wasn't happy with Kubrick's screenplay and movie and I'm definitely going to watch Stephen King's own Miniseries The Shining hoping that it does better (although Nicholson's absence will be clearly a loss!).