Stand by Me

The 1950s to the fullest, as well as King's proprieties, but the central four boys have no chemistry with each other, nor does Reiner's narration. This adventure has a simple plot but discourages via the narrative lapse that subjectively stretches the runtime to twice its length. This is because there are a dozen more problems the boys worry about before they start liking girls, but instead of a teenage epiphany, we get an endless camera romp without passion or drama. (03/19/2017)

When I first came across King's novel Body, I immediately thought it would be worth adapting it into a screenplay from the first lines. And when I reached the passage with the dog at the dump, I remembered that someone else had already done it for me a long time ago, and that I had even seen the film and the scene where Chopper chases Gordie, even though it's not fatal and luckily the heroes don't suffer any consequences from it, often haunted me in childhood dreams. Fortunately, a successful and surprisingly fascinating film was made from this amazing source material, which will be understood by all those in whom there remains at least a hint of the melancholic and half-playful mood of the boys who are slowly finishing elementary school. Even in short scenes, it is possible to show the fateful bond with an older brother, and above all, the whole film literally shines with King's melancholic mood, which seemed to me to be the toughest challenge while reading the original book. Everything could have turned out badly if it weren't for the great child actors. Moralizing about young boys is always a tricky matter, but here, everything was brilliantly handled by fifteen-year-old River Phoenix, who convinced me that if it weren't for his tragic death, Americans could have a current acting genius. The icing on the cake is Kiefer Sutherland, who endowed the originally more or less routine villain Ace with such an aura that you will shiver when you look at him. In the end, the source material remains unbeaten, but the film was able to capture its most precious aspect - the mood it evokes and which will stay with the viewer for a long time. (03/16/2007)

Despite not having read the book, I’m not afraid to say that this is an excellent adaptation. It has all the ingredients that make the work of Stephen King so distinctive and remarkable: the problematic relationships of the heroes with their parents, the loss of a loved one, Maine in the 1950s, a conflict with a physically stronger antagonist and child protagonists maturing during a series of symbolic events. The simple story is lined with the heroes’ journey to a goal that gradually gives way to situations, conversations and flashbacks, during which the kids become full-fledged characters, while the questions regarding death, affection and friendship take on concrete meanings. The pace is very slow at times, and the villains are exaggeratedly evil (as it’s traditional with King), but the power of the easygoing and unsentimental narration wins, and when in the end you hear the notes of that beautiful Ben E. King song, you feel like grabbing your sleeping bag and embark on a proper adventure with your mates – though instead of a corpse, I’d rather go looking for a sleeping beauty or a wandering beer barrel. (02/05/2019)

A bunch of youngsters who, a couple of years later, became normal actors, got together here in a pretty solid form and experienced a very extraordinarily ordinary adventure, which I will probably never forget. A great movie adventure done in the American way that reminded me of my childhood, which only adds to it. Nobody makes these ordinary children’s adventures anymore… a pity. (04/28/2016)

I first saw Stand by Me a long, long time ago, before I’d even read the original short story by King (I didn’t notice that I knew the story until the separate scenes of the movie started to unfold in front of me) and I really liked it. Now, god knows how many years later, almost nothing has changed. Maybe just that I savored it more and enjoyed seeing the young Kiefer “Jack Bauer" Sutherland in the role of Ace. The young actors put on amazing performances, most of all River Phoenix, who is no longer with us. This really is one of the best adaptations of a King book. (04/04/2008)