I am SO delighted that this brilliant version of Stephen King's classic "The Shining" has finally come to DVD. My grainy, commercial-laden, EP VHS copy, taped when the miniseries was first aired back in the mid-'90s, can finally be laid to rest.

This adaptation, faithful to the novel due to King's involvement, sprints easily past the comic-book, scenery-chewing version starring Jack Nicholson at his campy best (or worst, depending on your feelings about Mr. Nicholson) and Shelley Duvall apparently in rehearsal for her later role as Olive Oyl in "Popeye." She certainly had the wardrobe down pat.

Steven Weber, known to most viewers for his comedic role as Brian in "Wings," turns in a beautifully understated performance here as the doomed recovering alcoholic, Jack Torrance, trying to rebuild his life and keep his family together. Even in the goriest and most violent scenes, Weber somehow maintains plausibility, something Nicholson never managed in the first version. Weber's Jack Torrance gets taken over so subtly that you almost don't see it until his wife does.

Speaking of Jack's wife, Rebecca de Mornay is nothing short of superb in this role. Where Duvall's performance was whiney and timorous, de Mornay's Wendy is strong, protective, and yet vulnerable. We're scared for her; we're terrified with her. In contrast, by the time Nicholson's Jack got around to menacing Duvall's baseball-bat-wielding Wendy, I personally was rooting for Jack.

I was also much more impressed with the performance of the boy playing Danny in this version than in the first one. He was a better actor, for sure. My only complaint is that I wish the director had told him to keep his bow-shaped little mouth closed when he wasn't speaking his lines. The kid was mouth-breathing 90 percent of the time.

As for the script, I was delighted at the elements that were so effectively included in this version, particularly the animal-shaped topiaries that inched toward an unaware Danny playing in the snow. I actually had nightmares about that scene! And the woman in the bathtub ...

I won't give away the ending, but I did think it was a little too neatly wrapped up in a feel-good way. However, I was happier with it than with the original's stupidly enigmatic ending, with Nicholson freezing to death in the snowy hedge maze and then showing up in a photo from decades previous. And the very last scene, just before the fade to the credits, left chills in me for hours.

In all fairness to the Nicholson/Duvall version, this was a miniseries with three times the length of a feature film. There was time to include more details from the novel, and a slower pace to allow a more gradual, hence more believable, possession of Jack. Also, special effects technology is leaps and bounds ahead of what was available when the first version was filmed, and it shows.

Still, I say the performances all around in this version were of a much higher quality, and the screenplay was certainly more logical, more character-driven, and just plain superior.

The only drawback to the DVD version is that it comes on two disks, one of them double-sided -- even with a multi-disk player you'll have to interrupt viewing to turn over disk 1. At the price, I'd think they could have sprung for three disks so that at least those with multi-disk players could watch with little interruption of that all-important suspension of disbelief.



Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older