Review of Dreamcatcher (2003) by Kai82 — 14 Aug 2021

I am divided by this movie. I like what I see but often thought that I missed some context or a bit of information and this lessens the experience. I thought that they cut out some scenes or could not do all they wanted because of budgetary reasons.

Also parts of the story or reveals feel unbelievable. However this could be just me to be fair but others complained about that too to be honest too. It is based on the Stephen King novel Duddits that I have not read.

So I cant say if it is a good adaptation and you don't have to endure the unavoidable “The books are better” statement. Stephen King was mostly unlucky with his adaptation. For each Green Mile or Shawshank Redemption there are many poor adaptions of his works.

This movie here has a good set up, fascinating ideas and concepts but also misses the higher marks and has some weaknesses too. Story: It is set in 2 time periods like other Stephen Kings stories and the past is told in flashbacks.

In the past as children the friends Beaver, Jonesy, Pete and Henry saved the disabled boy Duddits from bullies. They received an incredible gift from him in return. Years later now as adults the four of them have a habit of making an annual hunting trip.

However this time it will be something no one anticipated as strange things happen. With this set up the story starts and I keep it spoiler free. Like I already said I am divided. Parts of the story are great and others fail for me.

For example the final reveal for Duddits got me immediately out of the immersion and I started to question myself how this is possible and be undetected. The storytelling lacks a bit of coherence. I always felt that I missed something or skipped a part with explanations.

I should be a bit more ironed out and I see why others rated this lower. Also while I like the menacing situation I always felt they could do this better. The menace should easily win with their available tools and it reminded me of “Signs” were they do a similar stupid thing.

So for the story it is a hit and miss at the same time. Actors / characters: I think we got a good cast with Thomas Jane, Jason Lee, Damian Lewis and Timothy Lewis as the four adult friends and Mikey Holekamp, Giacomo Baessato, Reece Thompson and Joel Palmer as their younger versions.

Good performance by all of them and I saw no missteps. Of cause we have Morgan Freeman as Abraham Curtis in a really good performance. I repeat as in many other reviews that there is no bad performance or truly bad movie with Morgan Freeman.

Other than those I liked Donnie Wahlberg / Andrew Robb as Duddits and Tom Sizemore as Owen Underhill. We got a good overall performance but those could not save the movie from the weaker storytelling.

Presentation wise I thought the movie looked good. While most special effects worked really well there are some exceptions. Overall I see the potential of a better movie underneath the problems. It is not truly awful but also not great.

Maybe to much mixture of genres and not enough focus on the strengths of the story like the set up, characters and menace.