Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
A few people complained last time I posted a DREAMCATCHER review that I didn’t put a spoiler warning and they learned that the main menace of the film comes from space. Considering the TV campaign is built around trailers that say things like “A threat from space” and “It has landed on Earth,” I don’t really think we’re the ones giving that part of the story away.
Today’s scooper certainly has thought about this one...
Hi Harry,
This is my first time contributing to AICN so forgive me if this too long/short, informative/noninformative, whatever. Feel free to edit it in any way you see fit. Anyways, I saw the very first preview screening of Dreamcatcher on Tuesday night and had some strong opinions.
Now I was really hoping that someone else would write up a decent review, one that more or less summed up my thoughts on film. But after reading the one review that’s surfaced, I felt compelled to contribute my review after all.
Here’s a spoiler-free review followed by a more revealing spoiler review (that really won’t make much sense unless you’re familiar with the book).
Let me begin by saying that yes I’ve read the book and despite the fact it is one of King’s weaker novels (yeah, I know just as well as anyone else whose read it that it’s really just a rehash of IT and THE TOMMYKNOCKERS), I was somewhat excited to see this, hopeful that by shortening the book to fit into a two hour running time many of the novel’s problems would be solved or minimized. I also went into this aware that King’s horror/sci-fi works don’t translate that well into movies, except for those in which there is a strong auteur presence behind the camera (ie-Kubrick, Cronenberg, Carpenter). I really hoped Lawrence Kasdan could step up and deliver...
SPOILER FREE
The first half of Dreamcatcher is simply great (it’s the better part of the novel, too, so I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised). It plays out much as the first half of the novel does, in fact, almost exactly as the first half of the novel does. However, it’s better than the novel, Kasdan (who also adapted the screenplay) does a magnificent job of creating a group of likeable and accessable characters who all possess minor psychic powers. There’s quite a bit of dialog that wasn’t present in the novel that has been added to provide depth and humor to these friends, and it all works wonderfully. All four actors (Jason Lee and Timothy Oliphant in particular) do a nice job simply humanizing their characters and making us care about them. There are a couple of flashbacks to when they were kids, and a few important events that went on in their childhood which led to their psychic abilities, and these are alright; not too great; but not distractingly bad either. They’re kept to a minumum to keep us focused in the present.
Of course this is a horror film, so bad things begin to happen and people die. It is bloody, it is gory, but more importantly it is TENSE. The effects, while not entirely complete, looked cool and scary. From reading the book I knew what was going to happen but still the action on screen kept me at the edge of my seat…
But then we get to the midway point of the movie, and, just as in the book, that’s when things begin to suck. Now, honestly, the middle third of the movie really isn’t that bad, but it’s the just the end of anything good the movie had to offer. We meet Morgan Freeman and Tom Sizemore, our military ‘bad guys.’ The story widens out to a larger focus, we’re no longer just trapped in the woods with four lifelong buddies, there’s suddenly a lot more going on with a lot more at stake. I’m not really going to go into it in the spoiler-free review, so just take my word for it. While the scenes with Freeman and Sizemore aren’t necessarily bad, there are just not as involing as those with our original four characters.
Then we get to the last third, where everything just goes to shit for John Q. MovieGoer. I really can’t go into it too much and still be spoiler-free, but let’s just say there’s a radical departure from the novel that is so out there that it loses everyone who HAS read the book, and everyone who HASN'T because it’s just so god-awful stupid. It’s really sad that a film that starts out so well ends up so poorly.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Like I said above, the first half is really good. Unlike the novel, we start out following each of our characters on the day Jonesy is hit by a car and killed (well, almost). They all have a psychic ‘moment’ of some kind (Pete finds a woman’s lost keys, Henry reads a client’s mind,, Jonesy catches a student cheating, etc.) before Jonesy gets wiped out on a city street (pretty cool looking effect, if you ask me). So far, so good. Six months later they arrive at their cabin in the woods on a hunting trip. The next couple of scenes are really just the fellas hanging out, having a good time. It’s well written and funny, and we really get to like these guys. Jason Lee, who's nearly always great, gives Beaver's ridiculous dialog (most of it straight from the book) believability and humor.
We get an introduction to Jonesy’s ‘memory warehouse,’ which is a sort of visual metaphor for how Jonesy’s brain works. If you’ve read the book, you know this will be important later on, but if you haven’t, this introduction seems a bit strange seeing as it kinda comes out of left field and we never really get into any of the other character’s heads at any time. In of itself, the ‘memory warehouse’ plays pretty well, it’s just out of place with the rest of the film at this moment.
There’s also two flashback scenes interspersed here, the first of which the guys, just young teenagers, first meet Duddits. Duddits is retarded, and the boys save him from a couple of bullying jocks, thus endearing themselves to the boy. In the second flashback, Duddits and the boys save a young girl who has been missing for weeks. Apparently, Duddits is the reason they have their psychic abilities, meeting up with him brings these abilities to the surface (yeah, I know, thin, but this is Stephen King we’re talking about), and the boys use these abilities to locate the missing girl (which for some reason required a lot of mildly cheesy CG. Why, I ask? When Pete finds the missing keys at the beginning of the film there’s no CG, and it works fine. Everyone gets that he’s using some kind of telepathy. Why use it here?). All in all the flashbacks work, they’re not too great (and too be honest, while I thought the kid playing Duddits did a respectable job, I could just tell he isn’t retarded) but they serve their purpose and are relatively short.
Back in the present, Jonesy and Beaver take in a lost hunter, who seems to have an unearthly case of the farts (and burps, too) and seems very ill. Kasdan does a nice job toeing the line with all the farts and burps, it’s funny but also kinda creepy at the same time. Other strange things start happening, like every creature in the forest, from bears to chipmunks, begin to flee.
And well, it seem our lost hunter isn’t just ill, he’s pregnant. With a shit-weasel. Image a big worm with rows and rows of large spikey teeth and a pronged tail. Then imagine it exploding out of your asshole. Yeah, that’s a shit-weasel. Our hunter gives birth and wreaks havoc, killing Beaver and nearly getting to Jonesy before Jonesy discoves…Mr. Gray, a rather tall, generic sort of alien (you know, smooth skin, big eyes). Much to everyone’s surprise, Mr. Gray’s head explodes, infecting Jonesy with this red fungus called Ripley. (Now I gotta say, the entire hunter/shit-weasel sequence is awesome. Tightly edited, suspenseful, couple of funny jokes thrown in to prolong the tension. A lot of blood, one gory asshole, cool looking creature design, good stuff all around.)
As you see, the first half of the movie is pretty much identical to first half of the novel (with a little rearranging of events), but second half veers completely off course and into a dangerous ravine known as UTTER AND COMPLETE CRAP.
I'm not going to go into as much detail with the second half of the film because honestly, it's just not worth it. But I will break down most of the major suckiness and where the film deviates (for the worse) from the book.
Let’s start with Col. Curtis, in the book, the man is insane, paranoid, homicidal. In the film he simply comes across as doggedly committed. Sure he goes to some extreme measures at times, but he certainly doesn’t seem mentally unstable, and he definitely isn’t homicidal (at least not until the end). Owen and Henry call him insane, but saying someone’s insane in a film isn’t enough, we’ve really got to see it, and I for one sure didn’t.
Moving on...in the book, Mr. Gray (as Jonesy refers to him), the alien mind that’s infected him, has taken him over like a human puppet and the only way Jonesy can keep any sense of ‘himself’ from being swept away is by hiding in a small portion of his ‘memory warehouse.’ Well, Jonesy can communicate with Mr. Gray, but it’s all just thoughts bouncing back and forth. So you’d think the easy way to express this in a movie would be to have Jonesy sort of argue with himself a la Gollum and Smeagol in The Two Towers. It worked there, it’s worked in other films...no problem, right? Well, we get that in Dreamcatcher, but for some unexplicable reason, Jonesy speaks in Jonesy’s voice but Mr. Gray SPEAKS WITH A BRITISH ACCENT! Why? I have no idea whatsoever. It’s so overdone it literally drew laughs from the audience. Horrible.
Still on Mr. Gray; in the book, he kills a few people while controlling Jonesy. How? By having Jonesy shoot them or break their neck, etc. How does the movie Mr. Gray kill people when he’s controlling Jonesy? BY MORPHING INTO A GIANT SHIT-WEASEL AND BITING PEOPLE IN HALF! I shit you not.
Interesting side-note: the film broke at about this point, resulting in a five or six minute delay. If for whatever reason they couldn't get the film back up and running and asked the audience to give their feedback on what they had seen so far, I would've given Dreamcatcher a passing grade. Great first half, so-so second. But oh I had no idea what was to follow...
In the novel, after Owen betrays Col. Curtis and helps Henry try to stop Mr. Gray, Curtis follows after them in a Hummer and confronts them at their final destination: the reservoir. Why? To stop Mr. Gray and exact revenge on the double-crossing Owen. In the movie, Owen betrays Curtis by calling in another General who takes over Curtis’ operation. We see one scene with this general where he apologizes to Curtis for having to take over the operation. Then a couple of scenes later, Curtis shows up at the reservoir flying a chopper with a huge mounted machine gun. Why? To exact revenge on Owen, and he doesn’t even know about Mr. Gray! How’d he get the chopper? Only Larry Kasdan knows because I sure as hell don’t.
At the reservoir, in the novel, Henry and Owen have brought Duddits with them to help track and confront Mr. Gray. Duddits dies before they can confront Mr. Gray. Owen is killed by Curtis, Curtis is killed by a shit-weasel. In the movie, Duddits doesn’t die, Curtis shoots at Owen with his chopper, and Owen, being a really bright boy, doesn’t run for the cover of trees or the cement reservoir control building. No, he stands in the wide open and shoots back.
Of course Owen is killed, but he succeeds in heavily damaging the chopper, sending it out of control. We see a shot of Curtis opening the chopper door. "Oh he must be close to the ground," I say to myself. "Cool, there's gonna be a ground battle." Nope, he opens the door and falls a few hundred feet (my absolute 'favorite'-cough-cough shot of the movie: close up of Morgan Freeman with really bushy eyebrows firing a machine gun in rage as he falls through the air) before he is impaled upon a tree. Fucking hilarious.
In the novel, Jonesy drives Mr. Gray from his mind and into non-existence with some help from Henry’s psychic ability. In the movie Duddits, yup, remember, I said he doesn’t die, confronts Jonesy/Mr. Gray (in a scene whose beginning standoff almost reminds me of...oh, I don’t know...Attack of the Clones...”Master Yoda”...”hmmm....Count Dooku"). Jonesy morphs into the giant shit-weasel he really is and impales Duddits...WHO MORPHS INTO ANOTHER KIND OF ALIEN-LOOKING THING AND GRAPPLES WITH MR. GRAY UNTIL A WEIRD PLACENTAL SAC ENCLOSES THEM AND THEY EXPLODE INTO A MILLINON PIECES! APPARENTLY DUDDITS WAS AN ALIEN, TOO!! We've just gone beyond Ridiculous speed and into Ludicrous Speed! Unspeakakly bad, just...awful.
I had real hope for this film at the halfway point. It was an improvement from the novel. The FX looked good, the writing/acting/editing was tight, it had us, the audience, right where it wanted us...and then it flushed it all down the toilet. Despite all the good things in the film's first sixty minutes, I can't recommend this film to anyone. I sincerely hope Lawrence Kasdan goes back and shoots another ending, something that makes a little more sense. I think that with even a so-so finale, this film could be a passable piece, but until that happens...no way.
One last thing, this was a mostly urban middle-class audience in their twenties and thirties, and in the first half of the film they laughed at the jokes, jumped out of their seats at the right moments, and talked nervously at the screen just like at any effective horror movie. In the second half...silence, dead silence. It's so difficult to get audiences THAT into a movie...and to see it slip away by the end...it's just wasteful, sad.
Well, that's it, the tragic tale of DREAMCATCHER.
I am
THE MIGHTY HETFIELD
Yikes. Double yikes. I hope this isn’t as terrible as this guy makes it sound, but I will say that whether it’s a book or a movie, Stephen King seems build stories that implode at the end, and so often that can color your enjoyment of everything that came before.
Still, with the ANIMATRIX short in front, this thing’s got my $9 no matter what come March 21st.
"Moriarty" out.
