Rating: 
Summary: Bad, Ludicrous, Gross, Disgusting, Childish, Unintelligent
Review: BAD & LUDICROUS:
I was really looking forward to seeing this movie. I am a Stephen King fan, and my favorite Stephen King books, are only his good books. Good novels like: Carrie, Misery, Dolores Claiborne, The Shining, Cujo, The Body (Stand by Me), The Green Mile. What has happened to Stephen King's writing? How could he have lost his touch? Don't get me wrong, I'm still a Stephen King fan, and will read his novels whether they're good or bad.But this movie is horrible. This is like a revised version of "Stephen King's It". It's like "The Tommyknockers" and "Stand by Me" put together. Morgan Freeman is a good actor an he was great in "Driving Miss Daisy", but in this movie he sucks and so does the character he plays. Dreamcatcher has bad plotting, acting, writing, & directing. It didn't catch my attention, and I could see right through all of the bad, unskilled movie technique that was applied to this movie. GROSS & DISGUSTING:
This movie has: farts, diarreah, blood, fungus, bad language, & violence all done in excess. Way over-the-top. After a while, you get grossed-out. In "Alien" with Sigourney Weaver, the alien has to burst through the chest of a person in order for it to be free and kill. In "Dreamcatcher" the alien has to come out of a person bowel movements. Absolutely repulsive! CHILDISH & UNINTELLIGENT:
The plot looks promising at the beginning. And then it shifts to this alien-military type story. It get's confusing. At the end you want answers, like: "Why are the aliens there?" "Why the british accents & an alien called Mr. Gray?" "What were they going to do with the earth?" "And what is the whole idea with Duddits?" You don't understand the plot. Everything is cliched, and predictable. Nothing original. This movie is as bad as "Gigli" & "Crossroads".
Rating:
Summary: One word says it all.......... Horrible
Review: I won't waste many words to describe this 147 minute long movie.
One word says it all... HORRIBLE. This rates among some of the worst crap I have seen put to celluloid in years..... The cinematography and effects are top notch but like virtually every film adaption of a Steven King story ever done (except Shawshenk Redemption and Carrie) this movie is terrible. My wife asked if Ed wood was still alive while watching it.. that should say enough. Whew...... bad....bad ....bad.
Rating: 
Summary: Good mix of horror, sci-fi and action!
Review: The story is original, the characters well played and the film script which had indeed the potential to be a disaster...is NOT!
Rating: 
Summary: Odd combo of Stand by Me, It and War of the Worlds
Review: Originally called Cancer, Stephen King's novel Dreamcatcher was written during his recovery time after being struck by a van and nearly killed. It, no doubt, provided many of the ideas in this strange combination of Stand by Me, Alien and It. The film works best when the four central characters share screen time both as children and adults. Kasdan is an actor's director and his work with the talented actors here is marvelous. Although the acting of the children playing Henry, Jonesy, Beaver and Pete is accomplished, it isn't quite as well developed as could be due to the limited screen time in the movie. Henry (Thomas Jane), Jonesy (Damien Lewis), Beaver (Jason Lee) and Pete (Timothy Olyphant)are bonded by friendship and two major incidents in their lives; the first is when they save a mentally challenged child named Duddits from being abused by older boys. Duddits isn't an ordinary mentally challenged child. He has the gift to read minds and other psychic abilities. He shares some of this gift with his new found friends. They quintet use their abilities to help save a missing mentally handicapped girl who is a neighbor of one of the boys. That's when they discover their unearthly gifts bestowed upon them by their new friend. Twenty years later the quartet aren't coping very well with their lives and much of it has to do with their gifts. Jonesy is nearly killed in a car accident while Henry almost committs suicide because of his inability to cope with the strange ability to see into other's minds. Their gift both unites and isolates them from others (a common theme in King's novels and stories). At their annual retreat to their hunting cabin one of the men discovers a lost hunter and and brings him back to the cabin. That turns out to be a terrible mistake. From here the film shifts to an alien invasion film. At an two hours and 14 minutes Dreamcatcher moves along in fits and starts. While it never gets boring, the pacing is a bit uneven although I can't think of any other way to tell the complete story without shifting from past to present as well as Kasdan and co-writer William Goldman do. Dreamcatcher manages to be faithful to the novel and I actually enjoyed it better than the novel. Why? Well I honestly didn't like King's novel all that much to begin with. It had three interesting intersecting plots but it seemed too familiar. The film, on the other hand, moves at a pretty good pace so that familarity isn't as big an issue. As Kasdan accurately points out any film of a novel is a reduction of the book. The adaption is occasionally more successful because it distills that essence and retains the important part of the book. With Dreamcatcher Kasdan and Goldman are very successful at capturing the better parts of King's book. Unfortunately, the tone of the film and focus shift so frequently that it doesn't quite build the way it should (neither did the novel). King's strength as a writer are his characters. While the characters do suffer a bit in comparison to the film Kasdan and Goldman manage to capture the best elements from King's book. The acting by most of the ensemble is truly impressive. Particularly outstanding is British actor Damien Lewis as Jonesy. He has the most complex and difficult character in the film to play and he pulls it. It's an impressive effort overall and, if it isn't 100% successful all the time, neither was King's novel. A warning for viewers is that the film is quite gory at times and the action is way too intense even for preteens (hence the R rating). The violence is, at times, graphic although Kasdan doesn't go over the top as someone else might. Morgan Freeman underplays the military ops commander Kurtz. It's a wise approach and bring an element of credibility to the role; Kurtz is insane and Freeman's deft touch and quiet understated approach makes the character even scarier. The DVD transfer is very good which is surprising given that the film takes place so much in the snow. These sequences could have been visually drab and uninteresting but due to Kasdan, production designer Jon Hutman and DP John Seale, they are not.
The sound is particularly good on this DVD highlighting James Newton Howard's unusual score. There aren't a huge amount of extras but what they do have here are interesting. There's a number of scenes cut from the film that do little to advance the plot but add shades of character. There's the original ending of the film which is less impressive but has a fine, quiet and touching coda. There's also an outtake that is very funny particularly as the actors ad lib but stay in character. The interview with King doesn't reveal all that much. It'll provide a bit of background on the genesis of the novel and King's reaction to the film. There's also two short featurettes on the process of making the film and the visual effects. Although Dreamcatcher isn't in the same class as Kasdan's best films (nor King's best novels or Goldman's best adaptions), all three turn in an entertaining thrill ride. It's at least worth a rental for King fans.
Rating:
Summary: Skip the movie and read the book.
Review: I read the book first and it's a good thing I did. The movie left out many key elements that made the book good. Now I personally was not blown away by the book but it was a good read none the less. Without reading the book you have no idea why Jonesey is in the room looking out the window or what the purpose is of him gathering boxes. They left out Mr Gray's love of bacon. There was so much that was left out or just plain ignored. The football player trying to make Duddits eat the item at the beginning of the movie, they don't cover his death. They completly changed the ending. The ending to the movie was very badly done. There was so much that was changed that it completely ruined the movie. On a final note, the Scooby Doo references and catch phrases just do not come across with the same passion and meaning as they did in the book. I am not kidding about that either, the whole Duddits character was so badly cast and played out in this movie that even if everything else had been perfect, the movie would have still been bad. Duddits was the pivotal character here. Everything was really centered around him and yet he was relagated to a side character and only gets maybe 15 minutes out of 2 hours and 15 minutes. Overall, skip this movie and grab the book.
Rating:
Summary: Stand By Me Meets A Low Budget Alien Flick. 3 STARS.
Review: Yes, I also wondered what the deal was with the alien having a Prince Charles accent! I agree with the other reviewer who stated that the first half of this movie was decent, worth watching. At first you have to laugh at how overdone the farting was here, I mean wasn't it enough to have to hear the the fat guy in the hunting cap blowing away, but we then have to hear the woman in the snow blasting at it.
I'll say this: this was much more entertaining than The Storm of The Century, It, and The Stand. There's so many other bad Kind adaptations, you get my point.
I kept this DVD and give it three stars, because it's one of those movies that aren't that bad when there's absolutely nothing else on to watch. With that said, I think any fans who haven't, should read the book and notice what was left out.
Still a half-ways decent addition to your King collection. 3 STAR RATING From Scraggy's Tomb of Horror, USA.
Rating: 
Summary: The Best Sci Fi Since Chain Reaction and The Core
Review: Every now and then, Hollywood treats us to a doozy, a film that unintentionally makes us howl with laughter. Dreamcatcher is just such a treasure. The dialogue alternates between wooden, trite, and jaw-droppingly absurd and features such memorable howlers as, "Your boss has gone insane from hunting aliens for twenty-five years!" These lovingly crafted lines are only the tip of the iceberg. We also get to hear characters refer to certain rectal wrecking aliens as "s&*t weasels." (One such beastie chomps a drunk feller in the nether regions before its big bad daddy "bites his bag." Boo-yah!) The plot meanders everywhere, offering numerous opportunities for idiocy of the grandest scale. Tie this glorious pile of wreckage together with the proposition that alien invaders who inhabit human hosts develop twitty English poofter speech habits, and you have a rare gem. All it is missing is any kind of a female character whatsoever. I guess the producers/writers/directors were afraid that introducing one would jeopardize the diaphanously delicate chemistry this cast has. In Dreamcatcher, it seems Mars does not want women. Don't rent this looking for a good scare: rent it looking for a good laugh. It features the trademark level of unadulterated cinematic suckiness that only screen adaptations of King's novels seem to attain. I agree with any reviewer who wishes the MST crew might have managed to get its hooks into this one. If you're looking for a fun way to waste some time, rent this, The Core (a phallic ship and bad science putting it to Mother Earth, and, again, ridiculous dialogue), and Keanu Reeves' Chain Reaction (with an appearance by Dreamcatcher laughmeister Morgan Freeman, who seems to populate absurdly bad sci-fi movies, and, you guessed it, more bad science) and treat yourself to some of the best of the worst flicks to have come down the pike in the past decade. Egregious but uproarious!
Rating:
Summary: DID ANYONE READ THE *&^*&* BOOK???
Review: Okay, I read the book. It doesn't appear that anyone else did... The book was creepy, and I really enjoyed it. So, I figured I would really enjoy the movie. WRONG!!! The first half was excellent - it stuck very close to the book. Then, out of left field, Duddits becomes a goshdarn alien!!!! (I would use stronger language, but I have people looking over my shoulder). When in the book did that ever happen? Question, did the producers and writers read the first half of the book only, and then decide to turn it into B-movie crap? I sat there watching the film, yelling at the screen in fustration. The book was, at its heart, a great King novel about five friends, one of whom happened to have Down's Syndrome. Instead, the film is about an alien masquarading as a Down's Syndrome child - which, in my opinion is an insult that imperfections can't be from our society but from "outer space." Granted, he saves the world, but he also does this in the book by simply using his sixth sense gifts. Why couldn't they have let Duddits be Duddits? It takes away from how special the character is in himself. I give this film three stars only because the first half was wonderful. Take my advice - read the book, watch the 1st half. Stephen King, PLEASE have ABC redo this as a miniseries (like with "The Shining") - they adapt the novels ten times better...
Rating:
Summary: It's not terrible, but it's not that good either
Review: Considering the roasting that Dreamcatcher received upon it's release, I went into this film with very low expectations, and while the film isn't as bad as it is reputed to be, it is far from being the best Stephen King adaptation. The story revolves around four life long friends (Thomas Jane, Jason Lee, Damian Lewis, Timothy Olyphant) who share a special gift that was handed down to them by a seemingly mentally challenged friend (Donnie Wahlberg) whom they had saved as children. When the four go on their usual trip to a snowy cabin in Maine, they become enthralled in the middle of an alien invasion while the military makes a strike against them. Morgan Freeman and Tom Sizemore also star as military officials; Freeman's character has a few ulterior motives, while Sizemore is just looking to do the right thing. Director/co-screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan and co-screenwriter William Goldman, as good as they are, had a tough time adapting King's epic novel into a 136 minute film, and while their screenplay misses quite a bit, I think all together they did a decent job. The special effects are nicely done, and there are some surprisingly good blood and gore effects to be had for horror afficiandos. Despite it's advantages (the great cast, director, effects, etc.), Dreamcatcher misses quite a bit thanks to quite a number of plot holes, loose ends, and a terrible ending that is nothing like King's book (the alternate ending included on the DVD is much better). Despite all that, Dreamcatcher is best enjoyed with low expectations, and it is a solid B-horror movie with A-level features.
Rating:
Summary: How could ne one like this movie!?!?!?!
Review: Really i mean it... besides Morgan Freemans HUGE eyebrows, the stupid plot, the talkin into a gun, the monsters that look [phallic]... oh wait and some guy shot down a helicopter with a uzi from the ground... and the explosion was huge.. i thought a nuke went off.... and did ne one listen to the horrible lines in the movie.... and thank god jason lee got that tooth pick.... wow what a horrible horrible movie... if ne one buys this movie... please buy it to make fun of... if u do then it isnt that bad of a buy.... but other than that... the movie is really horrible... a spoon in my eye would be more fun then watching this movie again... u think i am kidding... horrible... all i have to say... horrible... AND SINCE WHEN DID ALIENS HAVE BRITISH ACCENTS!!!
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