The best review for The Stand is to read Stephen King's book on which the screenplay is based. That might be somewhat time consuming since the uncut edition runs well over a thousand pages, thus defeating the purpose of a "review". But there's no plot summary that can beat it.
As the title suggests, the story is about a stand between the forces of good and evil. The end of world arrives with the escape of a lethal virus from a government laboratory. The virus spreads like wildfire and soon most of the world's population has succumbed to it, except for a few survivors. These few serve as the apostles of good and evil, and they are chosen by Mother Abigail (Ruby Dee), the leader of the good forces who is 106 years old and bakes her own bread, and Randall Flagg (Jamey Sheridan), the leader of the evil forces.
The forces of the good gather in Boulder, Colorado, and the forces of evil gather in Las Vegas. One of the subplots in this movie is the blossoming romance between Stu Redman (Gary Sinise) and Frannie Goldsmith (Molly Ringwald), which leads to the betrayal by Harold Lauder (Corin Nemec) who is actually influenced by Nadine Cross (Laura San Giacomo) who was originally involved with Rock 'n' Roller Larry Underwood (Adam Storke), but is actually the concubine of Randall Flagg (as you can see it's pretty twisted). Then we have some free spirit adventures like those of the Trashcan Man (Matt Frewer), The Monster Shouter (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), Tom Cullen (Bill Fagerbakke), and the dreams and nightmares of the individual people. All together it makes for a gripping Stephen King tale.
The effects involving the face morphing of Randall Flagg were very effective. The acting was quite good, but the screenplay was too long. The movie could've been shortened by at least one episode. The end sucks.
"M-O-O-N. That spells Tom Cullen." --Tom Cullen, The Stand