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 esides being a giant mess and a terrible bore of a movie,
"Dreamcatcher" has the same problem as "Signs"
-- it's a science fiction movie about aliens made by people who aren't
interested in the topic. If the screenplay by William Goldman ("The
Princess Bride") and Lawrence Kasdan ("Body Heat") doesn't
convince you that these two men have little to no interest in science fiction,
then their (unintentionally) hilarious version of an alien invasion will seal
the deal. The result is a film that tries to be more than a sci-fi romp when
fans of the genre don't want more, and non-fans will wonder what the hell aliens
are doing here.
"Dreamcatcher" is about 4 childhood friends that
have a telepathic bond thanks to their relationship to a retarded kid name
Duddits (Donnie Wahlberg). This little gift comes in handy when, 20 years later,
the four friends take their daily trip to a cabin out in the woods during the
dead of winter. Unfortunately for them, a race of alien invaders in the form of
slithering and slimy slugs with really big (and lots of) teeth is planning an
invasion (and apparently not for the first time). Bent on stopping the little
body snatchers is hardcore military guy Colonel Kurtz (Morgan Freeman), the type
of guy who can only exist in the minds of one Stephen King, who has never met a
military/government/establishment official that he didn't have disdain for.
I should also mention that the aliens take over human
bodies as hosts and gestates inside them while growing into adulthood, at which
point they exit the body by means that involves loud, continuous flatulence and
a trip to the bathroom. Besides this little (not to mention overly gross) means
of exit, "Dreamcatcher" resembles a film stitched together from genre
clichés. For instance, using humans as host is old hat for Alien Invasion
movies. The movie's only original touch is the visualization of a character's "memory
storage warehouse", where we see the character physically removing memories
and inserting in new ones as life dictates. Unfortunately the rest of the film
is not this clever.
Because this is a Stephen King story, all the standard King
conventions are present, some more noticeable than others. There's the Big Bad
Government/Military, teen bullies, kids with psychic abilities, the lyrics of
one song that gets repeated over and over, and little made-up catchphrases
formed from old TV shows or books that King thinks is really creative, but
sounds lame coming from the mouths of 30-something characters. It's probably no
surprise that the vast majority of King's stories that translates poorly to the
screen involve the paranormal. His straight dramas, like "Shawshank
Redemption" and "Stand By Me", prove that he's a better writer
when he doesn't stray into clichéd genre territory (which he invariably does,
probably without realizing it).
When it comes to writing about the paranormal, King's idea
of scary is not very scary at all. With a novel, King's monsters benefit from
the reader's imagination. Not so on the big screen, where the monsters always
seem to turn out really, well, lame. Take the villain of
"Dreamcatcher", essentially slimy slugs with big teeth. (Did King even
wonder how slugs flew that ship to Earth in the first place?) These slugs are
really disgusting, but definitely not scary. Even when one slug inexplicably
turns into a giant slug later on in the movie, it still isn't very scary. Also,
King's paranormal stories always seem to lose steam toward the end, as if King
just hit a wall and pulled a deux ex machina out of his Great Big Chest
of Really Dumb Ways To End a Movie. For instance, the evil clown in
"It" was a lot scarier than the giant bug it turned into in the end.
As mentioned, "Dreamcatcher" is much too long,
and shoulders about 30 minutes of wasted screentime. Director Lawrence Kasdan,
not exactly known for big-budget sci-fi epics, pads the running time with
tangents involving the characters driving or walking leisurely through the
movie's picturesque mountain retreat. The snow and the sight of whitewashed
landscape looks very nice, but they have absolutely nothing to do with the
movie's alien plot. If anything, the film's winter cinematography by John Seale
has more personality and charm than the movie itself. (And did I mention that
it's way too long?)
"Dreamcatcher" is certainly a mess of a film in
almost every way imaginable. Worst, it's a big-budget mess that fails to
convince as neither a drama nor an Alien Invasion movie. To top it off, the
movie is unintentionally funny on many occasions. One occurrence involve an
alien mimicking an English accent while inside a host. And then there's Morgan
Freeman ("Bruce
Almighty"), who must really be down on his luck because this is,
perhaps, the worst performance of his life. You know you're in big trouble when
Tom Sizemore, perennial owner of the Tough Sergeant roles, outshines you.
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