When the original movie COMA was released to theaters an
entire generation was put into a state of panic when it came to undergoing
simple surgery. The idea of surgery is scary enough but to consider the thought
that someone at the hospital would put you into a coma on purpose so they could
harvest your organs for the highest bidder? My guess is the number of people
who signed on to "organ donor" cards that year plummeted. Believe it
or not that was 34 years ago and it seems that there is a new generation who
has no idea what the story of COMA is. That is until they watch this new
mini-series just released on DVD.
The story revolves around a med student studying to become a
surgeon by the name of Susan Wheeler (Lauren Ambrose). It helps that her family
helped establish the hospital she's doing her residency in, but Susan has to
pull her own weight as well. Just having a name won't get you past doctors
trying to push you to the limit.
Things get a little odd when a friend of Susan's in for a
routine operation suddenly crashes on the operating table and goes into a coma.
No one can explain why this happened and she is eventually sent to a long term
care facility called The Jefferson Institute. But this doesn't comfort Susan
much. She continues to search for a reason for her friend's sudden comatose
state, a search that eventually causes two different people who provide her
with information to lose their jobs.
Running parallel to this story is a bright young surgeon who
is Susan's instructor as well, Dr. Mark Bellows (Steven Pasquale). Bellows is
having an affair with a psychologist and hospital head, Dr. Lindquest (Geena
Davis). As he instructs Susan and eventually joins her crusade to find out
what's going on, Lindquest becomes jealous and threatens his position. It's not
enough to stop him or Susan from digging deeper.
As Susan checks the records she discovers that there has
been an abnormal amount of comas at her hospital, enough that one would think
and investigation would have begun. But doctors and the heads of the hospital
circle the wagons and not only prevent an investigation but threaten to expel
Susan as well. To her rescue comes the star doctor of the hospital and their
biggest money maker when it comes to fundraising, Dr. Stark (James Woods). When
Stark takes gets involved with Susan's investigation things take a turn for the
worse. Sorry, no spoiler here I won't reveal anything involving Stark.
The more Susan digs into the reason for the comas and their
connection to The Jefferson Institute, the darker things become. Just who is
involved and how far up the chain of command this conspiracy goes is anyone's
guess and as viewers we find ourselves with plenty of possible bad guys to
choose from. From Susan's point of view there is almost no one she can trust
and even those she does she has to wonder about. When an attempt is made on her
life rather than give up she continues searching for answers.
If you've seen the original then you already know what is
going on behind the scenes. If you haven't then you'll probably not want to
watch this before scheduling surgery any time soon. The story itself is a tight
thriller that keeps you guessing until the end.
That being said it worked better the first time around.
Contained in a film just under 2 hours it works better and doesn't overload you
with far too much information or quantity of possible suspects. As a four hour
mini-series it takes us places that don't matter that just seem to fill time
and cause you to forget who is who and just why they're important to the story.
The pacing isn't near as frantic and the thrill aspect of the story doesn't
really kick in until the last 20 minutes of more. The original kept a pace
going from half way through until the very end of the film.
This is not to say that this version is terrible. It's just,
well, different. That's one of the problems with remakes; those of us who
remember the original find ourselves unconsciously comparing the two each and
every minute of the film. If this is your first exposure to this story then
you'll find plenty to hold your interest. If you recall the first version, this
one holds up okay but you'll find it slower than that one. Either way, it makes
for an interesting story and worth the price of a rental.
Click here to order.
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