Dreamcatcher

The problem with this film is length. It’s just too long to remain interesting or gripping. The main cause of this is that it tries to do too many things, tries to be too many things, and in the end satisfies none of them.
Based on a Stephen King novel the size of Texas, it has elements from his back catalogue – a group of childhood friends (Stand By Me) befriend a magical person (The Green Mile), they hole up as adults in a snow bound hostel (The Shining), weird things start happening (any novel…), one of them goes loopy and takes care of a victim of a car crash against their will (Misery)…it goes on…and on…and on. But this is only the first act – we then have a totally unnecessary plotline involving Morgan Freeman and Tom Sizemore, which to begin with looks like it’s being played tongue in cheek, but soon develops into something so bad, Roger Corman would blush. Throw all this in with Donnie Wahlberg stuttering and staggering out of his acting box, and you have quite frankly, a big studio mess.

All involved should have known better – writer/director Lawrence Kasdan penned Raiders of the Lost Ark for heavens sake, fellow screenwriter William Goldman is a genius and legend, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid being one of his many famous (and marvellous) scripts. Morgan Freeman is no stranger to Stephen King, but what was he thinking?? Probably what colour to paint that new beach house he bought on the proceeds of his ‘extra ham with that Sir?’ performance.

The four central leads are all engaging – albeit Damian Lewis surfing along the line of pantomime villain in places – and this is why the film is such a shame. The opening twenty or so minutes is genuinely good, the initial bouts of tension before – as ever – they show you the monster and ruin the suspense, are very well handled. It’s confusing why the film rapidly slips into nonsense – it’s all grounded in script level, and this is the easiest and cheapest thing to sort out – shooting everything and trying to work it out in the edit room never works.

Sorry Mr Kasdan, but your report reads: “Must try harder”.

That’s right. Your pain is a ball of light.

Tyler out.

- D.A.R.Y.L. is minimalist...