Rating: 
Summary: Better Then The Book!
Review: I like Stephen King and have enjoyed most of his books but I didn't like the book The Dead Zone that this movie was based on but I think this movie was okay and I think it's actually better then the book and it's very rare when a movie is actually better then the book it came from.
Rating: 
Summary: One of my faves
Review: Thsi is w=one of my favorite movies and Christopher Walken struck me as both eerie and sad in this film long before I knew who he even was. Whats handled nicely here is the responsibility of precognitive dreams. It could've simply been about him seeing things and doing something but this makes them more complex than that as it works to deal with the ramifications of all of this ability. In someways this is about the web that permeates from our lives to that of others and how we're only a few people away from destruction, how we're linked to darkness in ways we don't even suspect. I think that this and the Shining take the best look into someone having an odd ability an dthe personal price that wroughts. Whats nice about Stephen King's concept is that it pretty much came off here. Perhaps what works best in his films is the lack of special effects. To try and produce them with tends to disrupt the flow of the movie. Here Walken's acting and Brooke Adams make a tragic couple who's lives were interrupted for a number of years by his coma but ultimately their love is the sacrifice to save the world from Martin Sheen. Perhaps the message, intended or not is to look at our lives as part of a bigger landscape than just what we want.
Rating: 
Summary: Strongest adaptation of a King book
Review: Christopher Walken's quiet John Smith is the heart of the story. Smith is a man who wants to teach his students, marry his sweetheart and be good to his parents - a small and normal life.
Instead, he's involved in a horrific crash, is an a coma for five years and finally wakes to the loss of most of what he had and the acquisition of psychic ability. His doctor (Herbert Lom), once convinced of John's "gift", tells him this knowledge is not meant to be used.
The other reviews do a good job of describing the plot. What absolutely makes this movie, though, is Walken's performance as John. Considered by many reviewers to be his career's best performance, Walken portrays Smith as a physically frail man motivated by his own decency to change what he can, no matter the cost.
Rating:
Summary: THE ICE IS GONNA BREAK!!!
Review: Although not my favorite Stephen King story, it is my favorite movie adaptation of a Stephen King story. Quite a few changes to the original book were made, but they appear to be changes for the better. What makes this movie adaptation work so well is actor Christopher Walken as Johnny Smith. His portrayal of Johnny Smith is excellent. The visions of past, present and future that Johnny Smith is able to see after being in a coma for 5 years are so convincing, mainly because Christopher Walken acts with such intensity that while watching the movie, you really believe that he is indeed a tormented soul. When searching for the town mass murderer with the local sherriff, after having a riveting extra sensory vision of who the killer was and what happened to the latest murder victim, he tells the sherriff "I was there, I saw his face, I did nothing!" Unfortunately, the DVD packaging isn't much. Only a movie preview is included with the DVD, and that's all. It would be interesting if this movie had behind the scenes commentary of some kind.
Rating:
Summary: Not that good
Review: For Stephen King, it was not that good. This movie is kind of on the mild side for Mr. King. So, Walken gets in an accident and is in a coma for 5 years. When he wakes up he can see bad things in the future for people when he touches their hand. So he helps solves some murders and then he goes in hiding (he just moves to a different town) so that people will leave him alone. Then it turns into some political stuff, which is where it gets boring. and then of course, it has a typical Stephen King ending.
Rating:
Summary: Not a Horror Movie, But a Suspenseful Drama.
Review: Stephen King is a really good writer, even though he has become known as the king of horror. However, the best Stephen King stories are the one's that really aren't horror stories, such as "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" and THE GREEN MILE. Not surprisingly, these are the same stories that when adapted have been turned into the best movies. THE DEAD ZONE is another one of these films. THE DEAD ZONE is about a teacher named Johnny Smith (brilliantly played by Christopher Walken). After a mysterious night at a carnival, Johnny gets in a car accident after dropping off his girlfriend. He survives the accident but enters a coma and awakens to find himself several years in the future. His entire life has changed seemingly overnight. However, not only that, but Johnny now posesses a psychic gift that allows him to see possible events in the future and events that have occurred in the past. The "gift" seems like a curse and separates Johnny from the rest of the world. The movie builds up to the point when Johnny meets a man running for the US Senate. He sees the evil in the man and the destruction of the world if he is elected. So the question is raised, if you could go back in time and kill Hitler, would you? THE DEAD ZONE stays fairly close to the King novel it is based upon. There really isn't any horror here, just a tasty morsel of the supernatural. Walken, who so often finds trouble finding good work because of his peculiar physical appearance and voice, fits the part of Johnny Smith perfectly. Also memorable is Tom Skerrit in the role of a local sheriff and Martin Sheen as the shady politician. The movie is worth watching and serves as a good introduction to some of the non-horror writings of Stephen King.
Rating:
Summary: Rosemary from Laguna Niguel, CA
Review: The Dead Zone is the first time I have viewed a motion picture that was better then the novel-far better. The music and the photograpy built a haunting atmosphere with a touch of sadness.
All the characters in the film were outstanding, but the key to the story was Chris Walken's performance. Until he played this role, I had never visualized how a magical gift that helps others could become a curse.
Two visuals in the film made me appreciate the creativity of Chrononbergs work and demonstrated the power of film over words.
1. The moment Walken touches someone hand and the impact of the vision becomes viseral and physical.
2. The scene where Walken views the crime on the gazebo. The fact that he can see the crime unfold but can not stop it is almost painful but exhilerating to watch for it's mastery.
Last, but not least, the scene where Walken confronts Colleen Duhurst with the word "You Knew" is stunning.
I never get tired this masterpiece and Walken's performance.
Rating:
Summary: CRONENBERG - KING - WALKEN : A WINNING TRIO
Review: In my opinion, Christopher Walken is one of the most interesting american actors of the last 25 years, right besides Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. But unfortunately his filmography can not be compared with theirs. With the exception of Abel Ferrara and Michael Cimino, few leading american directors have used his talent. Too bad. So we must enjoy again and again his terrific performance in THE DEAD ZONE, a movie directed by canadian director David Cronenberg in 1983. If we still remember this picture, it's essentially due to Walken's character, a teacher who awakens from a 5 years coma with a psychic ability. Well, let's be objective, the technical skill of Cronenberg is also to be praised. The scenes showing Walken going into a trance deserve to stay in the movie annals. The picture is also giving us the opportunity to admire Brooke Adams, an actress who had the same kind of career than Walken's : two or three masterpieces like Terrence Malick's DAYS OF HEAVEN and a lot of forgettable films. Nothing special about the DVD. A trailer, good sound and images, that's all. Nothing special indeed. A DVD zone dead.
Rating:
Summary: Poignant, Melancholy , and Tragic
Review: It's hard to convey the sheer atmosphere of this movie, helped enormously by the wintry photography and a haunting score. At its heart is a very atypical performance by Christopher Walken - not in terms of his talent, which is always considerable, but because here his performance is not so much creepy as tragic, and even romantically tragic, and complex enough that I still think it should have been rewarded with that year's Oscar. My test, often, is whether I can imagine another actor in the same role delivering the same mundane lines and making them unforgettable (case in point: "The ice is gonna break!") No, I cannot. The supporting cast is also uniformly excellent. Despite the gore (and there are some jolts that remind you that this is Stephen King), what I remember is not the horror but the slow-building tragedy of one man's story and the poignancy of his sacrifice.
Rating:
Summary: emotionally rewarding film
Review: The Dead Zone is a film that is nearly flawless. Based on a Stephen King novel, this film stands out with Delores Claiborne and The Shining as my three personal favorites. It contains solid, convincing acting from all the main characters, a plot that keeps the viewer involved from start to finish, and a number of individual scenes that are remarkable, if not heartbreaking. The movie is about a teacher, Johnny Smith (played by Christopher Walken) who is involved in a near-fatal car wreck that leaves him in a coma for five years. After he wakes up, he learns that his fiancee left him for another man, he's lost his job, and most importantly, he's gained the power of second sight: the ability to see the future by touching people. As Johnny tries to deal with his anger and loss over his past (all illustrated beautifully through the cinematography, the acting, and the directing) he also deals with the reality of his newfound power, which has become publicized. Johnny, feeling isolated by life and alone, wants no part of the celebrity, living a life of a hermit. In a variety of scenes throughout the film, the viewer sees Johnny's power change the lives of the people he makes contact with, (and subsequently, the lives of people he's never seen before). The manner in which these scenes are presented, (so deftly and without contrivance)left me feeling a variety of emotions (sadness, happiness, hope, suspense, and most of all, tenderness). These feelings resonated for me and because of that, the film is at no one particular point boring. One small scene represents the first of Johnny's visions just after he awakens from his coma. A nurse reaches over Johnny's bed as he sleeps, he suddenly grasps her hand and sees her little daughter trapped in a fire in their home. He urges the mother that it's not too late. The next scene is of the daughter being given to her mother by a fireman as the house burns to the ground. This particular scene lasts about 25 seconds, but foreshadows the tender and often heartbreaking scenes to follow. The acting can't be overlooked. Walken delivers a believable performance of a depressed, scared, wounded man experiencing major life changes at an unflagging pace. The other actors, (Martin Sheen, as a presidential candidate with two sides to his personality, Brooke Adams, as Johnny's fiancee prior to the car accident, and Tom Skerritt as a police officer who supplicates Johnny to use his power for a greater good) are all convincing and powerfully delivered (though Sheen is at times, over-the-top). Walken and Adams develop a chemistry that, though they are no longer "together" makes the audience want them to be. The Dead Zone is an understated, quietly tender, yet powerful movie that can be emotionally rewarding if the viewer gives it a chance. Definitely one of the better Stephen King adaptations, if not the best.
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