Tags:
Film: The Fog
Year: 2005
Director: Rupert Wainwright
Writer: Cooper Layne
Starring: Tom Welling, Maggie Grace and Selma Blair
Review:
This film takes place on an island off of Oregon called Antonio Island. They are coming up on the anniversary of the founding of the town. They are going to have a festival as well as unveiling of a statue of the four men who founded it.
We start though in the past before the town is built up. The found men responsible are played by Christian Bocher, Douglas Arthurs, Yves Cameron and Charles Andre. They decide to do something with a ship off the coast.
The film then shifts to present day. We meet a local disc jockey who is played by Selma Blair. She is set-up in a lighthouse and converses with a weatherman via phone; he is played by Jonathon Young.
We then meet a man who runs a fishing charter company. He is played by Tom Welling and his partner is played by DeRay Davis. They are preparing to go back to the island when their anchor has issues coming up. It then dislodges something, but some of the men that they took out lose their fish. They are not happy and do not tip. Davis was controlling the anchor and he is told to clean the deck. Welling needs to get a new part for the boat.
It is then that we learn that Welling has a girlfriend, who is currently in New York, but she left abruptly and no one is sure if she will return. In the mean time, Welling has been hooking up with Blair, but he assures Davis that there is nothing there. We then meet the mayor of the town, played by Kenneth Welsh. He is working with Sara Botsford and she clearly doesn’t like Welling. Welling is upset that so much money was spent on the statue instead of helping build up the marina and the economy.
That night Welling is driving along the road and he sees a young woman walking. He stops to give her a ride and it turns out to be his girlfriend, played by Maggie Grace. She ribs him for how he has changed since she left. He takes her to go see her mother, Botsford. It doesn’t last long and she leaves with Welling.
Davis takes out Welling’s boat along with Welling’s cousin and two young women. They are drinking and hanging out. Blair in the lighthouse gets a call from Young who tells her that there is a fog bank that is moving in. She finds this weird, because it is moving against the wind. On the Seagrass, Welling’s boat, the radio and all of the gauges stop working. The fog engulfs them and there is a ship in it along with something else. The people on the boat are attacked. Grace and Welling go back to his place where they make love in the shower and go to bed. Grace hears banging at the door and has a dream of what turns out to be the past. She doesn’t get all of what happened, but keeps getting glimpses.
The next morning, a man played by R. Nelson Brown, finds a pocket watch on the beach. A boy also finds a brush, the boy played by Cole Heppell. He goes home and he is the son of Blair. He gives her the brush.
Welling is concerned when he learns that Davis never brought his boat back. Grace is given the pocket watch from Brown and starts to look into the mark inside of it. The mark was a flag that was flying over the ship in the past. That night, the fog comes back as well as what is inside of it. Will the people of this island survive? What really happened in the past?
This is a remake, but thankfully it is not a shot for shot remake. This film does touch on all of the important points from the original film, which I do not mind. This film also does benefit from having updated technology so the fog that rolls in does look a lot more realistic and they could actually do more with it. I do like that this film developed the back-story more than the original did and made it much deeper. I will give the film a little leeway as to allowing Grace to learn what happened in the past. There is also Grace and Blair are both good looking and seeing Grace in her underwear is a perk, if you are into that.
Now I do have some issues with this film though. The first is something that a friend told me when this film first came out and then I realized it after watching it again today. There is a lot of people that get thrown or pulled through windows. There is a lot of breaking of glass in this film. There are also some good actors and actresses in this film, but they seem to be wasted. The one that really bothered me was Welsh. I’ve seen him in other things and I like him a lot. But this film, he doesn’t get a lot of screen time and when he does, he comes off as flat. For some reason as well, this film comes off as boring and it disappointed me.
Now with that said, I would recommend seeing the original instead of the remake. This one does look better, being from 2005. The original though has a better cast, better acting and there is much scarier feel to it. This one does benefit from the updated technology and the better back-story. The women in this film are more attractive to me. This one just falls short for me and is a disappointment. I would recommend seeing this if you want to compare the two films.
My Rating: 5 out of 10