Rating: 
Summary: The Green Mile (1999)
Review: Director: Frank Darabont
Cast: Tom Hanks, Michael Clarke Duncan, Michael Jeter, David Morse, Sam Rockwell.
Running Time: 180 minutes.
Rated R for violence, langage, and a grisly execution scene.As with many Stephen King novel adaptations, many viewers complain that the book was far scarier than the film and that the images portrayed visually are not nearly as efficient and signifant than on paper. "The Green Mile", an epic flim representation of the serial book series written by King in the mid 1990s, is an example of how some films are just as good as the book. Tom Hanks gives another above-adequate performance as the head chief of a maximum-security penitentiary who discovers that a new cell inhabitant may not be all that he seems. As the film unfolds and director Frank Daraont reveals the truth about the mammoth criminal (played by Michael Clarke Duncan), "The Green Mile" becomes less of a rehash of "The Shawshank Redemption" and more of a "Twilight Zone" episode spliced with "Cocoon". The film has a great supporting cast, especially that cute little mouse Mr. Jangles (not credited), and an excellent, emotionally-involved script that will grab viewers and keep them captivated until the very end. While a little long in its deliverance, this motion picture is one that can truly touch the hearts of individuals and shed tears in those who would not have thought possible. A supernatural tale that seems out of place in portions, but overall a heartwarming drama that will surprise, scare, and arrest you.
Rating: 
Summary: Book or Movie?
Review: I haven't actually experienced the DVDs, so I can't comment on it specifically, but hear me out. Also, these two are *always* thought of together, so here goes: I've watched both The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile more than once before reading the books. If I *have to* pick one movie as my all-time favourite, it would be The Shawshank Redemption. The book is really brilliant, but I'm of the opinion that the movie did the unthinkable and actually improved on it. In my mind, the situation is reversed when it comes to The Green Mile. Although the movie is really brilliant, the book is better. Maybe the reason is that The Green Mile doesn't get the words and ideas as Stephen King uses them into the movie as exceptionally successful as The Shawshank Redemption. Still, it's worth every dollar and every minute.
Rating: 
Summary: A Total Disaster
Review: I really felt disgusted several times while I was watching this movie. What's so good about seeing somebody fry on the electric chair!!?? I can't believe how the editorial reviewer put it, "masterfully and grippingly staged". The whole setup of the movie is so disgusting and depressing: a doped guy with saliva runing from his mouth, a prisoner fussing around a mouse, a lunatic guard that gets pleasure out of killing, and to top it all off, a guy coughing up bugs. I think that "mastefully and grippingly nauseating" would be more like it. I wonder if this movie is frequently watched in nursing homes.
Rating:
Summary: Before you watch just remember 3 hours you can't have back
Review: GOD THIS MOVIE BITES!!!!!!!!! Why does it get so many stars from all people. My Gosh that movie was about the biggest wast of DVD memory or tape in the world. It is worst than the Godfather, just the same crap you see in all movies somebody hates a black guy and he is going to get the chair somehow just because he was black. DUMB! RACIST! IGNORANT!!!!! JUST BECAUSE HE IS BLACK DOES NOT MAKE HIM THE G**-D*** DEVIL ALRIGHT YOU STUPID IDIOTS!!!!!!! For crying out loud they purposely electricute a guy till he practically blows up. Jeez how can people be so heartless????? remember 6 words to remember before you watch: Three hours you can't have back. Words to live by.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Serial Novel and Outstanding Film Adaptation
Review: Darabont followed up his brilliant adaptation of King's Shawshank novella with this brilliant adaptation of the serial novels "The Green Mile." I actually saw the movie prior to reading the book, and was absolutely amazed at how closely the movie follows the book. If anything, the movie adds material instead of excising it. The only subplot that the film fails to explore has to do with a cruel nursing home staff member who is practically abusive to the main character. Otherwise, what you find in the serial, you find in the film. The characters are all incredibly memorable and brilliantly cast. Tom Hanks and Michael Clarke Duncan steal the show, while David Morse, Bonnie Hunt, James Cromwell, Michael Jeter, Barry Pepper, Patricia Clarkson, Sam Rockwell, Doug Hutchison, and Harry Dean Stanton fill out the supporting roles with enough depth for four films. Although the story has supernatural elements, the key to the story are the human interactions--Hanks' sensitivity to the needs of prisoners condemned to die in Louisiana's electric chair, and the twist ending that manages to give all of the true "bad guys" their just desserts (and not all of those bad guys are the ones in the cells). Perhaps the best of all of the King adaptations, the Green Mile will make you laugh and make you cry, but most of all, it will make you CARE.
Rating:
Summary: Watching it on TV will not do it Justice - Dead Man Walking
Review: This is a great film and a great DVD. Tom Hanks does a wonderful job being in charge of prison guards who guard death row inmates.... This is an intense movie where you will feel the wrath of killers the sadness of execution and the injustice of someone falsely accused. This movie talks about a time before DNA evidence, it is a little bloody and the scene about the two girls who are abducted and murdered is a little much. Yet, you will feel for Clarke, a rather large man plays Coffey, who, wrongly accused, plays a man who has great powers, almost magical, yet he is forgiving of his captors and of the accusors......he almost is willing to die and not defend himself, almost like the scripture; 'of whom this world is not worthy.' The world is not worthy of Coffey who seems to love his fellow man even though he was tortured and beaten as a slave, yet, how is it possible that he is so young still in the 1930s? Tom Hanks and Bonnie Hunt make a great couple who have challenges with Tom's job and his health. Coffey has the abililty to 'heal' people and this is part of the injustice of the movie. He is chained and taken to the warden's house to heal his wife. There is an eerie sense to this scene where Coffey is in chains in a truck. You wonder why he needs to be chained, he does not seem to want to run. The warden who knows of what Coffey does for his wife, does not seem to want to help stay the execution of Coffey. This movie makes you wonder if there was, at the time, a desire to help people who were the dregs of society. You feel frustration for a man who is unjustly accused of murder and who actually can help people. I am not sure if there is message in this story or what the intended message is. Yet the Green Mile is a movie that shows the human side of tragedy, the intensity of death row, the cruelty and injustice of life, and that what goes around comes around, yet it may be time before that happens. There is so much to this movie that to tell it all would give it away. See this on DVD, the TV version will really only be an introduction to the DVD. The DVDs additional features will give some interesting insites to the movie that only the DVD can do.
Rating:
Summary: A Mile's Walk All Lovers of Great Film Should Take
Review: For some reason, we came late to this gem of a film. Maybe it was the previous track record of not entirely successful Stephen King movies (with the honourable exceptions of Shawshank and The Dead Zone, of course) that made us put it off. Or a bit of a Tom Hanks surfeit? Perhaps I was a bit "Magic-Realismed-out," too: not a category, from King or anyone else, that exactly fills me with delighted anticipation. That's what the trailers had made it look like. Plus, I hadn't read any King for some time, so I'd forgotten what he himself might have neglected for a while - the plain fact that, when he puts his mind and pen to the business of real story-telling, there is no living author quite as effective or affecting on man's humanity (and inhumanity) to man (and beast). I hadn't even noticed that Frank Darabont had put the film together. It took my Dad to point out that we ought to see it: a neighbour had lent him his copy and Dad - probably your least forgiving critic when it comes to films-of-books - went into Urgent Recommendation Mode. He kept saying, especially, "The mouse is brilliant." I bought him the book after that; he said he was glad he'd seen the movie first because, even though, as usual, "the book's better!" the film had been an especially good cinematic equivalent. So I read the book first. Wonderful: possibly King's masterpiece, actually, and certainly the work that confirms his claim to serious literary status - and, for my money, elevates him to the ranks of Dickens (to whose work The Green Mile bears at least equal comparison, if not...). And so to the film. What a revelation! Dad was right about the adaptation: the perfect screenplay of a literary masterwork. There is not one element here, from Thomas Newman's exquisite score to the fantastic acting from the likes of David Morse and James Cromwell, that is flawed. The pacing, setting, the orchestration of striking, poignant incidents, the originality of both (restrained) "supernatural" element and good old, bad old Human Nature - all of it is superb. The final miracle is that these perfect parts, not least Hanks' total authority in the lead/narrator role, add up to an even finer whole: an engaging, moving work that tackles the burdens and joys of life in the most intelligent, imaginative way you could wish for. This is comedy to die for and tragedy on the classical scale. The Green Mile is as profound as Shakespeare's Primrose Path. Watch it, please; prepare for a funny, harrowing walk along King's and Darabont's brilliant metaphor for life's varying lengths and values. And remember my Dad's praise (and concealed warning to those of us of an empathetic disposition): "The mouse is brilliant." Beware, though; I defy anyone not to be moved to tears - even after your weeping for John Coffey has subsided - by the touching endurance of Mr. Jingles.
Rating:
Summary: "Ol Tom knew what he was doing when he joined the cast!
Review: This film was one of the few that I saw on the recommendation of my parents. I ended up buying it on dvd, after seeing it probably five or six times. Over three hours long, but I can assure you, you would enjoy this film. A wonderful story played by a wonderful cast. A job well done by everyone, including the late Michael Jeter. The dvd also contains a good "making of" documentary. If you only ever own one Tom Hanks film on dvd, this should be one of them. A classic for future generations.
Rating:
Summary: 'John Coffey - Like the drink, only not spelt the same'
Review: A truly great film, starring the terrific Tom Hanks. This movie shows he can play any one in any film, and he does it well. Many Stephen King movies aren't worth their weight in gold, particularly some of the "Stephen King's" whatever. This one, along with Carrie, is. It's worthwhile watching (even if you do need to keep your legs crossed throughout!) and it'll definitely make you re-think certain things. There any many good actors in this. Alongside Tom Hanks, there's David Morse (Brutus "Brutal" Howell), Bonnie Hunt (Jan Edgecomb), Michael Clarke Duncan (John Coffey), the late Michael Jeter (Eduard Delacroix) and Dabbs Greer - 'old' Paul Edgecomb, better known to a select few as Reverend Alden from Little House On The Prairie! There is a lot of clever camera trickery used in this movie, to make Michael Clarke Duncan look even bigger! He's a big hunk of love to begin with, and considering there's only an inch between him and David Morse to begin with, it was done very well, as Michael seems to tower over everyone. Also, quite a lot of the time, you only saw Michael's top half - I'm sure he must have been standing on something. It's the first shot(s) of him, when he first comes onto the Green Mile, and everyone looks upwards! Of course, unless you're thick as two short planks (like moi) you will have realised that Michael's character, John Coffey, has the same initials as another infamous healing character. So it's almost a modernised version of that, although maybe better and less graphic. It's obvious what will happen, but what I noticed throughout the movie, other characters get "seen" sitting on the electric chair, and getting electrocuted, but you don't see this with John Coffey. The camera goes somewhere else and you only get a quick shot of him sitting on it - it's almost like he got a dignified exit. I suggest if you have a very weak stomach, you turn away when Eduard Delacroix gets electrocuted. It is not pleasant, and you WILL feel sick. There is a lot of 'green mile' imagery in this movie - of course, during the main part of the film, but at the start, the floor of the nursing home is a green-ish colour. And if you're Mr(s) Know-It-All about your movies, you will perhaps notice that the music played over the loudspeakers in the retirement home as Old Paul Edgecomb first walks out of his room is the same as the music the nurses played at medication time in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest! This film comes highly recommended, and the book is just as good. The extras are quite good at the same time, although not if you don't like looking at Stephen King!
Rating:
Summary: skip it...
Review: This movie really really sucks... Don't waste your time!!! Nothing like Dead Man Walking.
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