Rating: 
Summary: Dreamcatcher is frightening and brilliant!
Review: "Dreamcatcher" has brilliant directing from Lawrence Kasdan, the director of "The Big Chill", "Wyatt Earp", and "Silverado". It stars Morgan Freeman, Thomas Jane, Jason Lee, Damian Lewis, Timothy Olyphant, Tom Sizemore, and Donnie Wahlberg. Damian Lewis' performance is brilliant and dynamic as Jonesy. Jason Lee is brilliantly funny as Beav. Thomas Jane is expectional as Henry. Timothy Olyphant is incredibly smart in his performance as Pete. Donnie Wahlberg is superb and wondeful as Duddits. Tom Sizemore is incredibly brave in his performance as Captain Owen Underhill. But Morgan Freeman's peformance as Colonel Abraham Curtiss is over the top and he tries too hard at his performance. I liked the movie because of how intelligent it sometimes can be. The music by James Newton Howard is brilliant, the visual effects from Industrial Light And Magic is superb, and the screenplay is smart. Go see it now!
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing that it is no good
Review: The trailers for Dreamcatcher really had me wanting to see this film. The cast looked quite wonderful and the visuals looked stunning. Little did I know that the film really wasn't any good.Now that I've said that, let me tell you that I did not read King's book of the same name. Therefore, you may need to discount my opinion as a criticism of the parent work rather than the film. It's the subject matter that really bothers me the most with this film. The acting is excellent and the mood is really intense. However, the subject matter here seems to be nothing more than an amagamation of King's "The Body" (made into a film as "Stand By Me"), "The Tommyknockers" (not one of his best), "It", and "Sometimes They Come Back". There's a really cool scene in the film where all the animals in the forest are moving as a single pack - predators and prey included. This makes for a really creeepy moment. King's forte has always been his human interaction and emotion. In this film, we are presented with less of that and more nonsense. As a viewer, I thought I was going to see a suspenseful film set in the snowy wilds - something along the lines of Dolores Claiborne or Misery. Instead it was a reject from the X-Files. I suppose that Sci Fi fans would enjoy it, but I wanted a suspense film. So maybe I'm reviewing this from the wrong place. I'm not this film's target market BUT the trailers are very misleading. That aside, the film doesn't really have a cohesiveness and wastes good actors. Timothy Olyphant is completely mis- and under-used. I don't know who the main actor is - never heard of him - never seen him before - don't expect to again. And why was Morgan Freeman even involved in this project. His part is completely useless.
Rating:
Summary: Ok but not that good.
Review: So the book was better and that is all I have to say because this movie was stupid but the starting was the best part. I'm not going to tell you how [bad] this movie is because I'd be here all day and I have to go to school so [it's bad]! I have a real good idea where this movie should go... The local dump. Well I have to say is that the producers could have made it more interesting and the movie Resident Evil pretty much sums this movie up but in this case its aliens. Goo Bye produce you are the weakest link.
Rating: 
Summary: The best Film of 2003 so far.
Review: I saw Dreamcatcher the weekend it came out. I was completley amazed and blown away. The film is weird and a little diffrent but it's amazing. I am not going to go into a long summary about the movie because by now I think you know. If you don't know I'll make it short and simple. It's a Supernatural Alien thriller. Now the fim it's self starts off amazingly. I fell completley in love with the Main Titles. As well as I love the music which is composed by my very favorite James Newton Howard ( SIGNS, UNBRAKEABLE). Then the movie gets just a little bit confusing. Afterward it is a somewhat funny movie[]. Then goes into one of the most intense sequences I have ever seen on the big screen. Then the movie becomes in action adventure with about three to four different stories happening at once. The film is amazing except for some of the [] humor. I've seen a lot of the good movies this year ( Catch Me if You Can, X2 X- Men UNITED, Matrix Reloaded). But Dreamcatcher is still the best one so far.
Rating:
Summary: Umm, it wasn't too bad...
Review: I have to say READ THE BOOK before you watch this film. I found that having already read it helped a great deal. Dreamcatcher is my most favourite book of all time. It was honestly a thrill to read and re-read. As usual the characters are easy to identify with, (Henry and his suicidal thoughts, perhaps not-so for myself).
I was very gee'd up to see the film and even more excited when I saw a picture of young Duddits and thought, hey at least they got Duds right.
I cannot fault the effects, they were excellent and the climax was certainly more interesting in the film than the book.
But. Yes there it is. But, so much was lost of Duddits, Jonesy , Henry, The Beav and Pete's childhoods that it just left me going, I want more of that!
The performances were excellent by all the actors. I loved the portrayal of my Gray and jonesy in his memory warehouse, wonderful concepts.
This film is definetely and entertaining way to pass the time but don't expect to be as wowed as seeing Gollum for the first time. Still very good watching.
Rating: 
Summary: The Ultimate Camping Flatulence Joke---gone horribly wrong..
Review: When the closing credits for "Dreamcatcher" rolled, I had two initial thoughts: 1) Lawrence Kasdan is a really funny guy; and 2) "Dreamcatcher" is definitely *not* a chick movie *or* a date movie. And that, for me, explains its perverse appeal. I don't know what happened to Larry Kasdan during production for this film, and I don't know that I want to know. Kasdan, as most of you know, is a brilliant screenwriter, director, and producer, and is responsible for some of the most compelling cinema set to celluloid, including "Grand Canyon", "Silverado", and the screenplay for "Empire Strikes Back". This is a man who knows his stuff. But let's talk about "Dreamcatcher", which is based on Stephen King's novel (which, when I read it, seemed to positively scream out for a movie adaptation). I feel comfortable saying this: the movie is better than the book. The Plot, very quickly: four old friends get together at a remote cabin in the Maine backwoods for their annual reunion, basically to hunt, drink, get bleary-eyed from drinking, and tell horrific fart jokes. The four of them---a used-car salesman, a suicidal psychiatrist (with a character like that how *can't* you like the movie?), a college professor, and (I think) a novelist---all grew up together with a shared secret: a boy they rescued from his tormentors, the Down's Syndrome afflicted Duddits (played by Donnie Wahlberg). They share another thing in common: they all evince low-grade psychic abilities. But that's really not all that interesting, and the movie doesn't really do anything with the subplot; indeed, it is when "Dreamcatcher" flashes back to the friends' youth (where each is played by a horribly, painfully wooden child actor) that the film sags, and sags seriously. So seriously that you will use your remote control early and often. Be advised that by doing so, you should feel no guilt: you're not missing anything. Anyway, two of the friends make a beer run into "town"; the other two go hunting. "Jonesy", played amusingly and deftly by Damien Lewis, happens across a hunter, who claims he's lost from his hunting party. "Jonesy" takes the hunter, who is afflicted with reddish, suppurating flesh-wounds, a bloated stomach, and possibly gangrenous flatulence, back to the cabin---and that's where the fun begins. Indeed, the next 30 minutes of the movie are so horrific, so awful, so hideous, so gory, and so glorious (from a horror buff's perspective), that they excuse whateverc nonsense comes after. Basically: there's something awful buried deep in the bowels of the hunter---and it's not a bout of stomach flu. I remember, years ago, that Alien 3 ran with the tagline "This time, evil is in the most terrifying place of all." Nope, I'm afraid they didn't get that right---but "Dreamcatcher" has it right on the money. Evil, in this horror film, *is* in the most terrifying place of all---tucked up in the bowels. Naturally, this being a flick based on the work of Stephen King, Evil gets out---and boy does it get out. Again, the filming of this sequence is so awful, so horrid, so putrid, and so over the top that I feel forced to tip my hat to "Dreamcatcher", and give it 3 stars. Kasdan and company have gone over the top in a way that no horror film in memory ever has. "Dreamcatcher", flaws aside (and there are plenty of them), is a quintessential 'guys-at-camp-in-the-woods-on-a-hunt' movie. Take your wife to this film and you'll wind up divorced; take your girlfriend, and you'll soon be celibate. And that's really what burns at the dark heart of this B or C-movie traffic wreck: it is the ultimate guy-drunk-at-camp movie. Guys in the woods get together, drink lots of beer, and tell horrible fart jokes. This is one of those jokes gone horribly wrong, and once you understand it on that level, you might actually enjoy yourself. Anyway, the rest of the movie is a pretty conventional by-the-numbers alien infestation/contamination/military quarantine movie; Tom Sizemore and Morgan Freeman are wasted on stock characters that are so wooden you wonder why Kasdan even bothered writing lines for them. The world is imperiled, thousands are infected, the a**-weasels (this is what the film calls them---I just report this stuff, I don't invent it) don't get enough air-time, and Jonesy gets possessed by a malign alien intelligence. Did you know malign aliens have clipped British accents? In this film, they do. Oh, and Duddits---well, the final cosmic battle between good and evil is so ridiculous, so loony, so improbably and awkwardly staged, that it nearly imperils that wonderful toilet scene. But not quite. I can only imagine what happened for two major talents like Lawrence Kasdan and fellow screenwriter William Goldman to have produced a cheesy, wooden, truly bad B-movie like this; maybe the studio was breathing down their necks and wanted the film out double-time, maybe Stephen King was calling them every day from Maine. At any rate, the movie is so bad that it will doubtless be a great cult classic. That said, the first 30 minutes of this stomach-turner make it required viewing for any true horror buff or gorehound. You could do far worse---and if you've been on a hunting trip in the deep woods, you very likely have.
Rating:
Summary: A muddled mess that too seldom resembles a good movie
Review: For a short period maybe about a third of the way through, this takes on the aspects of a promisingly taut thriller. Some guys in a snowbound cabin in Maine start seeing strange phenomena. They have given refuge to a man seemingly lost, who wandered into the area, starting to get stomach bloating, supposedly from some wild berries he ate. Then they are puzzled when they look out the window and must be seeing every warm-blooded animal in the forest, all migrating in the same direction, as if running away form some ominous going-on. Then a helicopter passes over. They try to summon the chopper for help, saying they have a sick man in need of transportation to a hospital. By then, the sick man's gastric problems are getting all the more severe and ominous, by the way. But the helicopter offers no assistance, only announcing that everyone must stay put, as a quarantine is in effect. A promising set-up for a compelling thriller. But unfortunately it is mostly downhill from there. The potential for ongoing suspense is mostly squandered on confusion and over-the-top grossness. I wish I could have seen instead the effective movie that this could have been, and I can only imagine that a lot of viewers must have felt similarly.
Rating:
Summary: READ THE BOOK BEFORE
Review: A lot of people dislike this movie because they have no clue whats going on. The best thing to do before watching this movie is to read the book. The book goes into a lot more detail and explains everything. The movie is unable to get into alot of detail. The book is close to 900 pages long so if the movie went word for word with the book it would be about 4 hours long. I thought the movie was great until the end. The first hour or so is almost exactly like the book. Then it seems like they try and fast forward everything. They also [messed] up the ending entirely. The book ending was great. It was perfect. The movie's ending is just stupid. It almost made me start laughing. If you want to know how it is supposed to end read the book. There is one more thing i am dissapointed about. When Mr. Gray kills people they just show the guy like fly a distance and die. The book had way more detail. My favorite was when Mr. Gray made the truck driver stick his pencil through his eye stabbing his brain. Stephen King goes into a lot of detail with it too. Dont expect to watch this movie to get scared out your pants either. I got the same feeling watching this movie as i did with the Sixth Sense or Unbreakable
Rating: 
Summary: two thumbs DOWN!
Review: Man, this is disastrous! I expected a great movie while watching the trailler, I was really curious and looking forward to seeing this movie, but I was disappointed. The beginning is still very nice, but after about 45 minutes it loses all its way. It was a waste of talent as well. Great actors, but terrible roles. And what were those eel-like creatures???? How about those farts? What kind of movie is it? It's not something that makes you scared, nor laugh. It just makes you feel tired and bored. I asked myself all the time while watching it: "Man, when does this movie end?"..."what a wast!". Please, don't waste your time and money on this movie. You'll be very disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: s'ok
Review: Having read the book before watching this film I was seriously disappointed. I thought that the stellar cast and great director would combine to make a fairly good film. It's a decent movie and if you go in with low expectations you won't be disappointed. It just had so much potential, plus they butchered the ending. I blame the scriptwriters and the editors for ruining a cool concept. Overall, it was okay. I enjoyed it more than Daredevil, but that's another story for another day.
|
