I go into movies with the intention to enjoy them. I wish I always got my wish.

Dr. Sleep is an adaptation of Stephen King's sequel to one of his most beloved novels, The Shining. It is also a sequel to the Stanley Kubrick movie of the same name. Kubrick's film famously deviated from the source novel. I don't necessarily mind that. I think the 1980 film of The Shining is a masterpiece. The film of Dr. Sleep falls short of that mark.

First, what worked. The film is very well made, and the cast is uniformly excellent. Director Mike Flanagan knows his stuff, and he was a good choice for the job. I really enjoyed the first two hours of the film's roughly one hundred eighty minute running time.

Now the problems I had with it. I felt that the antagonists of the Dr. Sleep novel were the weakest elements of the story. I was affected much more by the spiritual aspects of the book. Such as how Dan Torrence became "Dr. Sleep". The film rushed through that stuff, instead focusing on more action featuring The True Knot.

The finale of Dr. Sleep takes place in the abandoned Overlook Hotel, and here is where the suck factor kicked into high gear. It became ludicrous as Flanagan slavishly recreated scenes and situations from The Shining. But Mike Flanagan is no Stanley Kubrick. Not by a long shot. Dr. Sleep became a murky, awkward mess in the final thirty minutes, which was frustrating because the first two hours were so good.

I don't know. Perhaps the studio insisted on the links to The Shining. It seems to work for a lot of fans. I wish I were one of them.

Stephen King has been incredibly popular again, with the unprecedented success of the It movies, the other movie adaptations, and the TV stuff. There was a King burnout in the late eighties and early nineties. I think we are approaching that situation again. Dismal box office reports for Dr. Sleep indicate that may be the case.

But we still have what really matters, and that is the books. Stephen King is still one of the best, and he always will be.

Written by Mark Sieber

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