Something Wicked This Way Comes--The Disney Movie?

WARNING: SPOILERS

I find it amazing that Disney of all companies is the one that chose to make a movie of Something Wicked This Way Comes. Let me remind you--a book that inspired Steven King!

So, is it a good adaptation? Well, there are some good things and some bad things.

Let's start with the good, shall we?

First of all, I'd like to say I thought Jonathan Pryce was a great choice for Mr. Dark. He was as calm and gentlemanly yet menacing as he should be. Jason Robards did well as Charles Halloway. I especially liked the confrontation in the library.


Compared to the book, I like a few of the things the movie did better. For starters, it moves at a brisker pace at the beginning. Now, I appreciate the book setting everything up, but it does take several chapters, whereas the movie gets it done in maybe 20 minutes or less.

Plotwise, I also liked that they established the owners of various shops as minor characters (in the book they're more minor still), telling us a lot about them through idle chatter. They even made the bartender a character in his own right, whereas in the book he was barely there. Here he must have an interesting backstory, since he was clearly once a football player, but now he lacks an arm and a leg. It's never explained what happened to him, giving the impression that this man has lived through some tough times in the past, which we don't know about, thus feeling more real. Ed's injury and his recovery from it must be an interesting story in its own right.

Also, the movie shows what became of Mr. Crosetti and Mr. Tetley. In the book we just knew that the carnival got to them and did something to them. Sure, we could assume they were among the "wax" figures in the Mirror Maze, but it is never really said. In the film, conversely, we are indeed shown just that. We are even shown the scenes of their temptations. Thus the movie does a better job of producing the feeling that the carnival is going after the whole town, rather than just Will and Jim.

In addition to these things, the block of ice with the woman inside has more to it as a plot point. It is implied to be Madamoiselle Tarot herself. This continues later on when the lightning rod salesman is being tempted to marry her or something. But neither the book nor the film explain why this one temptation was inside the town while all the others are in the carnival. Especially since it was in an abandoned building and only two people saw it...

Regardless, those were the good things about the movie.

Now hold on to your hats--the bad list is rather long.

For one thing, they changed the fates of the lightning rod salesman and Miss Foley. In the first case, instead of becoming a dwarf, he is taken and placed in the electrocution chair (instead of Cooger; I'll explain that farther down). He is tempted by Dark and Tarot and they demand he give up information for them. Later, he ends up killing Madam Tarot!? Well there goes an important plot point. The lightning rod salesman was turned into a dwarf and remained so at the end of the book, not remembering who he was, so as to make clear the fact that there are lasting consequences when we give in to temptation. Also, it undermines a character moment for Mr. Halloway.

In the book, Charles has discovered that happiness, joy, laughter, smiles all effect the "autumn people". These things can be used as weapons to defeat them. He works through the pain of his mutilated hand and shoots at Tarot with a wax bullet (the real one in her mouth, for the illusion) both inscribed with his smile. Thus he kills Tarot and sends the carnival people into a tizzy. He has learned that he isn't too old to have a great life and he can help people with their troubles. He's not just a useless old man. This doesn't happen in the movie. Nor does the scene when he first discovers how to stop them.

The fact that these important scenes aren't in the film also make it stranger when at the end he is whooping and hollering, trying to get Will to join in, to overcome the power of the carnival and to help Will deal with Jim's possible death. It seems extremely ridiculous and out of the blue, changing the mood in the snap of a finger. To be fair, any adaptation of this scene would seem ridiculous (though that's the point), but here there isn't even an explanation for it. In the Mirror Maze, instead of breaking the mirrors with laughter, he just punches them!!! Yeah...That undermines this theme of the book.

Miss Foley's fate is also changed drastically. Instead of using the carousel to become a little girl and being coerced into telling Will and Jim's names, she wishes to become beautiful and instantly becomes so. Then, as a consequence, she goes blind for some reason. Later we learn that she indeed told the boys' names. So basically she plays the same role as in the book, but her fate is completely different for no reason. How hard would it have been to hire a child actress for a scene or two? They had to hire another actress anyway, to play young Miss Foley. It seems they changed it for no reason.

Another problem is that Cooger is not chased back to the carnival and ends up turning too many times, becoming extremely old. Nothing at all happens to him in the film. This fate is reserved for Mr. Dark, in the climax of the film. However, this ruins two points in the book. First, without Cooger being so close to death, Mr. Dark tempting Jim with the idea of a "Dark and Nightshade" carnival ( formerly "Cooger and Dark") doesn't make sense. Furthermore, and more importantly, Mr. Dark is killed by goodness in the book. This is to demonstrate that good triumphs over evil and is more powerful; that good frightens evil. The movie's ending seems to suggest that physically destroying the carnival equipment and using Dark's own machine against him are what defeats the carnival, rather than simply choosing not to let evil overpower your will or soul.

Further, they never really established Mr. Dark as the Illustrated Man. To the movie goer, it would seem he has a kaleidoscope on this right forearm and he drew Will and Jim's face on his palms with blue Sharpie. His Illustrations and their power are a plot point in the book. In the film, when Dark clenches his fists till they bleed, crushing the images of Jim and Will, the boys are unaffected. A bit of blood drips on them, that is all. In the book, however, it established that Dark could inflict pain and torment on others if he had their images tattooed on his body. So, again, clenching his fists till they bleed is rendered pointless.

Madamoiselle Tarot is an odd case. First of all, they only show her true face, with her eyes stitched closed and everything, for about two seconds. The movie could have been much creepier if they showed her that way the whole time. But weirder is the fact that the filmmakers apparently took a metaphor literally. A few times in the novel, her hand is compared to a spider. In the film, she has a big spider. Later on, she even influences the boys' dreams and causes them to dream the same dream--that they're being swarmed by countless big spiders. A major continuity error comes when in the dream the boys are clearly older. It was shot after the rest of the movie to replace a special effects-heavy scene that they couldn't make to work. It could almost work as tying into the theme of the story--growing up--except they remain that way when they awake! Then they go back to normal in the next scene. The balloon sequence in the book worked better than a random dream sequence.

And I already mentioned above why the change in her death causes problems for the plot.

Finally: Jim's death. In the book he is at last tempted to get on the whirling carousel. He gets on, but keeps an arm out for Will to try to get him off, as he is conflicted between getting what he greatly desires and not abandoning his best friend. This results in him getting older (except his arm) while Will tries to pull him off. Will also ends up on the merry-go-round before Will's dad manages to shut off the power. In the process, Jim is thrown off and when he lands, they fear he is dead. But in the movie...Mr Halloway grabs him just as he's stepping on, and that somehow knocks him out even though nothing happened to him, and they still think he might be dead!

Yeah...

All in all, the film has many problems when compared to the book, but on its own, it is a decent film with a decent atmosphere, a plot that still mostly makes sense, though different from its source, and which has an interesting score by James Horner.

I suggest checking it out. Here's a trailer:

Fun fact: in the trailer you can hear some of the darker, original score by Georges Delerue.

Next Time: Continuity