AllMovie

Frank Darabont's second prison drama in as many directorial efforts (following his hugely admired The Shawshank Redemption), this stilted supernatural yarn pushes viewer endurance at more than three hours, without the finely tuned attention to character that made Shawshank so memorable. While admirably performed, with Tom Hanks giving another understated and sympathetic portrayal, the film often feels like it's unfolding on a loop. Many scenes play as if you're seeing them for the second or third time, and usually do little to further its fantastical story. The morbid fascination of Stephen King's serial novel is muted here in favor of a more sentimental (thus less convincing) rendering, and unlike the written source from which its based, Darabont's film paints all of its characters in an easily accessible good vs. evil mosaic. This proves crippling to the film as a whole, especially one so ambitious as to address racial tension, capital punishment and moral values. In an odd turn of events, however, the film gained an audience the longer it played, and eventually scored four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and a Best Supporting Actor for Michael Clarke Duncan, who was a relative novice at the time of release.