MOVIE - DREAMCATCHER - Review Rating - $$$$$ $1/2 (OUT OF 10)
STARRING - Morgan Freeman (Col. A. Kurtz), Thomas Jane (Dr. Henry Devlin), Jason Lee (Beaver), Damian Lewis (Jonesy), Tom Sizemore (Capt. Underhill), Timothy Olyphant (Pete Moore), Donnie Wahlberg ("Duddits").
DIRECTOR - Lawrence Kasdan (French Kiss, The Big Chill, Mumford).
Based on the Stephen King book of the same name (I am a Stephen King fan but I haven't read Dreamcatcher so I can't tell you if, or to what degree, the movie deviated from the book).
Five lifelong friends, with telepathic powers, save the earth from an alien invasion.
Several of King's books have been made into movies with mixed results. His more "conventional" books, such as The Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me, Misery and Green Mile made the transition to big screen successfully. King's horror/sci-fi novels, with the exception of The Shining, have not faired so well when transformed into movies. I've always thought part of the reason for this is that a picture is worth a thousand words. King's scarier books rely on a combination of detailed description and the reader's imagination to create the appropriate atmosphere. What takes King pages to set up can be conveyed in a brief scene on the big screen. The impact is lessened as a result and a large portion of King's stylish writing, which make his books so readable, is lost. Dreamcatcher retains just enough of King's signature style to be a watchable movie.
You'll recognize portions of other King novels in Dreamcatcher. There is a definite similarity to Stand By Me. The best parts of the movie are the scenes that deal with the lifelong friendships between the four guys. These scenes also have numerous humorous moments. As noted above, this is the "conventional" aspect of King's novel so it should come as no suprise that these scenes are reasonably well done.
Dreamcatcher starts to falter when it deals with the "unconventional" aspect of the story. While the special effects are of decent quality the aliens are a bit phony. The final alien scene, in particular, had low budget written all over it. This undermines Dreamcatcher's credibility.
The military response to the alien invasion is also poorly conveyed. The character of Col. Kurtz (a reference to Marlon Brando's character in Apocalypse Now), played by the great actor Morgan Freeman, is badly written. The rest of the military story line, meant to be a compelling, thought provoking moral dilemma, instead comes across like a bad G.I. Joe adventure.
What saves Dreamcatcher is that the underlying story is strong enough to maintain your interest and the movie is relatively well-paced, though it verges on the long side.
As an added bonus, fans of the Matrix and the pending sequel The Matrix: Reloaded, get a chance to see the animated short The Final Flight of Osiris before the start of the main feature.
Dreamcatcher is not the best adaptation of a Stephen King novel. If your not a fan of King's, or science fiction, you may not find this movie to your liking. That being said, Dreamcatcher is much better than most of the movies currently in release, and thus warrants a recommendation.
Running time: 138 minutes
Alternative Reviews:
Roger Ebert's Review
Peter Travers / Rolling Stone Review
Rotten Tomatoes Reviews
DREAMCATHER OFFICIAL WEBSITE
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2003
David Schwartz.
Last update:
8/9/03; 11:07:42 PM.
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