Cady's Take:

There is such a mish-mash of elements that the film moves from being "Stand by Me" one moment and swerves into "Aliens" the next. The film jumps all over the map, as it seems to suffer primarily from a massive identity crisis with way too many characters. Once the aliens and Morgan Freeman arrive, the film becomes just another bad horror movie full of clichés and predictability. What an absolute mess. Freeman looks as if he would rather be anywhere but in this film. I don’t blame him!

The second half rips open about twenty cans of worms, and then frantically struggles to pick them all up. It is neither touching nor scary and just doesn't come together. By the time you reach its climax there really isn't much suspense or compassion, because you just don't care.

In adapting the novel, they most likely wanted to remain faithful to King, who often makes the mistake of ending very complex and intriguing tales with... well, a fight with a huge beast. So, this can’t all be Lawrence Kasdan’s fault. The Stephen King stories that have hit the silver screen follow the pattern of really good beginnings, really shotty endings, and a middle that starts the downhill run. Such as ” IT”, loved the book- hated the movie! Anyone else out there think that “It” stopped being scary the moment they found that gigantic spider?

To sum it all up- Dreamcatcher is a movie that has no identity.

If I told you to go see a movie that was about a group of male friends who had received special powers in their boyhood from a young mentally challenged boy that they saved from getting beat up one day, and twenty or so years later they get together for their annual meeting in a mountain cabin, at which point they are attacked (as are all people and creatures in the surrounding area) by a disease/alien/mysterious something, and that Morgan Freeman plays a nutjob of an Army general who is sent in to stop the outbreak/attack/mysterious something but he is a loose cannon who just wants to blow everything (and everyone) up to contain the problem, and that the boyhood friends end up saving the day, would you go see it? I hope not.

“Dreamcatcher” is a movie based on a Stephen King novel, and boy can you tell. There is something “Stephen King-ish” about the young boys….they grew up in Derry, Maine for one thing. I think ALL of King’s characters grew up in Derry – a lot of evil up in those parts. Unfortunately I am not big on movies where the evil ends up being a huge worm with about a thousand teeth that can also morph into other, more hideous creatures. With a few notable exceptions, King stories do not translate well onto the big screen, in part because of the way he writes dialogue, and also because much of King’s books work because we get to hear the internal monologue of at least a few of his characters. “Dreamcatchers” attempts to solve that problem with some scenes where the boys read each other’s minds and say things like “I didn’t say anything” and “Yes, you did, I heard you” and then everyone realizes they can read minds.

I refuse to discuss the details of this movie further, since the plot merits no real interest, the performances are as good as they can be I suppose, in a movie that just does not make sense. I could see the blurry outlines of Stephen King’s novel here and there, and even though I have not read it, I feel safe in my recommendation to instead read the book.