A&E’s two-night miniseries remake of the old ‘70s Michael Douglas movie about a med student trying to learn why so many patients at her hospital are lapsing into comas, the frequently silly “Coma” comes to us from John J. McLaughlin, the writer behind the 2005 Tommy Lee Jones cop-cheerleader comedy “Man of the House” and Darren Aronofksy’s “Black Swan.”
The first night is decent, and ends with a strong cliffhanger, but the second night – which focuses on a chase involving a murderous, microphone-rocking mental patient -- is a real eye-roller. I stuck with the mini to the end, but found myself afterward wishing I had not bothered.
I will say the project boasts a solid cast, topped by the fabulous Lauren Ambrose (“Six Feet Under”) and featuring Steven Pasquale (“Rescue Me”), Joe Mazzello (“The Social Network”) and Geena Davis (who long ago worked with “Coma” producer Ridley Scott on “Thelma & Louise”), plus James Woods, Richard Dreyfuss and Ellen Burstyn.
... has the rickety feel of a cheap summer novel, with lots of implausible actions and plotlines that aren’t tied together very well. Most of those coma patients seem to have remarkably docile relatives who don’t ask many questions (lazily explained away by fat hush-money checks). And for a smart medical student Susan is remarkably dumb, doing her Nancy Drew thing without alerting the authorities or making sure that someone trustworthy …
The good news about "Coma," A&E's four-hour miniseries adaptation of the Michael Crichton film airing Monday and Tuesday night, is that it's much better than its previous miniseries adaptation of the Michael Crichton book "The Andromeda Strain." The bad news? It's still not very good. …
The San Francisco Chronicle says:
... So little effort is invested in character development that when one major figure is revealed to be the evil brains behind the operation of inducing comas in surgical patients, our response is something akin to "tell me something I don't already know." … For the most part, the crucial element of the unknown is missing from the A&E miniseries, reducing the film to a moderately engaging whodunit with expansive credibility gaps in plot and character. …
... excels when it falls into nail-biting territory. The story isn’t earth-shattering, and the filmmaking isn’t especially imaginative, but the production is a solid piece of suspense. …
... Unfortunately, the ride is pretty good right up until it isn't. Things get gory, but more importantly they get incoherent. In the end, "Coma" needs a crash cart. …
... packs two hours of story into four hours, which means it’s full of go-nowhere plot digressions and half-hearted red herrings. Beneath all the filler lies a halfway decent medical thriller, although it’s consistently undermined by the choppy pacing, cheesy dialogue and indifferent acting. …
... still has enough scares to give you a case of the shakes. …
... In a sense, strong ratings for "Andromeda Strain" -- reuniting its producers, including Ridley and the late Tony Scott, as well as director Mikael Salomon -- all but foreshadowed "Coma's" fate, as the latest project follows the same formula, bloating and dumbing down the relatively spare, science-based source material. … isn't worth losing sleep over.
9 p.m. Monday & Tuesday. A&E.
