Director: Mike Flanagan
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Rebecca Ferguson, Kyleigh Curran, Cliff Curtis
Have I Seen it Before: Aside from wondering how much play they’re going to get out of the (computer generated?) recreated sets of The Shining (1980), but it certainly seems like Warner Bros. is going to get they’re money’s worth out of the effort.
Did I Like It: Sure.
I can’t help but think back to 2010: The Year We Made Contact (1984). Is there a need to make a sequel to a Kubrick film? Almost entirely not, and yet the foundation that Kubrick leaves us with is enough to make a pretty watchable movie.
And while Flanagan’s film has its flaws (it drags in the middle, and leaves perhaps one too many plot holes that aren’t helped by acknowledging that they exist), there’s more than enough to like.
Do we give this film credit when a lot of what works about the movie is directly from the original? Yes, because for the most part elements from the first film are taken with some degree of restraint, and almost always in service of the story. I probably could have gone without the use of either the main title from the original film or “Midnight, The Stars, and You” in the opening and the closing of the film, as that moves the proceedings a little disappointingly into the territory of fan film, but it can be forgiven. The fan service could have been a lot worse.
Like with that earlier unnecessary but ultimately likable Kubrick sequel, the performances elevate. McGregor extends the sad, unformed wonder of Danny from the original to an adult with sadness metastasized. His arc toward hope (even if it means his physical doom) fuels the movie. Ferguson dances between the hypnotic and threatening qualities that the story demands with enough versatility that for much of the run time I didn’t recognize her as an actress I had seen in films before. Curran could have easily veered into too-precocious for her own good, but manages to be believable in a role that other films (including the original) would have relegated to a mystified mute. Carl Lumbly is so good as Hallorann that there were several moments I wondered if they had used some manner of computer trickery to bring Scatman Crothers back from the dead.
Will Doctor Sleep equal its predecessor? I can’t imagine it will, but it did manage to be watchable and not embarrass itself. That’s all I needed it to be.