It's been almost a month since the last review, this is due to me not having any heating in my house and because my computer is sat right next to the window. This was causing my hands to go numb because of the cold weather but the heating's back and so am i, and with a new review too boot. Anyway here we go, check out my review for this great 80s sci-fi thriller Dreamscape....
After almost a month's hiatus, im back with the second review of 2012 and returning, like I often do, the best decade for movies IMO, the 1980s. Now my intention for the site was to provide a place for people to come and find films they may never have known existed, to get people interested in films that were made before Harry Potter waved his wand and the Autobots worked for Michael Bay, and for those people to tell other people to check out these films to keep genre cinema going and in the process I myself have been discovering more gems of the genre kind. One film which I would like to share with you is the 1984 sci-fi thriller, Dreamscape, starring Dennis Quaid..
When it comes to Horror or Sci-fi, there are many films that use the idea of dreams in which they play a pivotal role within the plot. Look at any of the Nightmare On Elm Street films, Joe Dante's Explorers and the recent Christopher Nolan film, Inception, which this film closely resembles. All of these films use the idea's of dreams to propel the narrative. In these films, well maybe not in the case of Explorers, a dream is a place where anything can happen, you can do anything and be anyone and there are no consequences as they're not based in reality, that is unless someone else was physically able to enter your dream. Dreamscape is about that process, much like Inception.
In the film Dennis Quaid plays a young psychically gifted young man you squanders his talent by gambling and getting into trouble. He is recruited by Dr Paul Novotny (Max Von Sydow) and Dr. Jane DeVries (Kate Capshaw) to aid them in an experiment to help discover the reasons for some people having nightmares. He finds that he is able to enter peoples minds via a machine. Overseeing the project is corrupt government official Bob Blair (Christopher Plummer) who wants to use the dream machine for far more sinister deeds, He wants to use it to assassinate terror threats in their dreams. The President of U.S starts suffering from horrific nightmares of a nuclear holocaust and Alex is pitted against a fellow psychic to save the president form the wasteland of his dream.
Dennis Quaid plays Alex, He's a cheeky, Charismatic character and Quaid plays him with gusto, in fact it could be seen as a sort of try out for his character Tuck Pendleton in Innerspace, Quaid made some great films during the 80s and 90s, stand outs being The Right Stuff, Enemy Mine and Great Balls Of fire in the 80s and Wyatt Earp, Any Given Sunday and Savoir in the 90s but since then he's mainly stuck to genre fair such as Four Horsemen and Legion although there have been some good roles he's not got that Charismatic cheeky chap he played so well in the 80s. I just hope that Quaid gets a role that give us back that awesome dude from before.
Kate Capshaw is stunningly beautiful in this as Dr. Jane DeVries, the scientist, passionate about what she is doing and trying her hardest to avoid the advances of Alex. Capshaw is good and had already received attention that same year when she co-starred opposite Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom, beating 120 actresses to the role. Capshaw also showed up in the film SpaceCamp and in Black Rain. She's not acted since 2002 and is married to the god of modern film making, Steven Spielberg.
Max Von Sydow, who never seems to age is great as Dr Novotny but Sydow is such a great actor that you can't really say a bad thing about any of his performances. Even in Stallone's Judge Dredd film he probably had the most understated performance in a film that seemed to thrive on over acting. He rose above that film with a great performance and as usual he's fantastic here in Dreamscape. When I talk about he never ages, i'm referring to the fact that he looked older in The Exorcist as a Father Merrick than he does in this, and Dreamscape was made 10 years after that. A Brilliant actor.
Finally rounding off an already great cast is the brilliant Christopher Plummer, Recently nominated for an Oscar, who much like Von Sydow never seems to give a duff performance, from the head of the Von Trapp family to voicing Charles Muntz in Pixar's brilliant Up, Plummer has never let the side down. If you remember from my review for the film The Silent Partner, I said that in the role of Harry Reikl he was at times pure evil and at times smart and cunning, well here he drops the pure evil but keeps the smart and cunning and turns in a rather shifty, at times, slightly sleazy and downright ruthless performance intent on achieving his goals. As usual Plummer excels.
Rounding of the rest of the cast are a host of well known faces, George Wendt turns up as an investigative journo, Pete Jason off of They Live shows up as a heavy and the rival psychic is played by David Patrick Kelly, well known to Walter Hill fans as the psychotic Luther from The Warriors and as Sully from Mark L. Lester's awesome Arnie vehicle Commando and lastly Eddie Albert, star of 60s sitcom Green Acres as the President.
The film was directed by Joseph Ruben, and when thinking about the name I remembered he directed a recent underrated sci-fi film called The Forgotten which I thought was great. Anyway I was checking out his biography on IMDB and it seems that's he's directed some pretty good films including The Stepfather (the original version not that god awful PG-13 remake), The Good Son, Sleeping With The Enemy and Money Train, well ok the Latter film wasn't entirely great, but it's weird when you remember a film from someone then find out that he actually made some pretty decent films and you were not wise to this. That is what I love about discovering new films. Any way Ruben handles the mixture of fantasy and political intrigue very well and apart from some rather dodgy blue screen back grounds and the silly snakeman monster, the film is solidly shot.
To finish off my review of Dreamscape, here's my final verdict.
Dreamscape is a fast paced, enjoyable sci-fi thriller with some great central performances and support performances and it really does make you wonder whether Inception is as original as we've been led to believe. But that aside, it does have one slight problem, The political conspiracy part of the script is only really brought into fruition with the 3rd and final act, and this make it seem rushed. It's sort of hinted at during the course of the film but it's not until about 70 minutes in that the conspiracy becomes the main focus. It is still, however, a excellent political sci-fi thriller, that is unfortunately out of print in the U.K, but for the folks with multi-region capabilities, the U.S region one disc from Image is still available through amazon and is quite low in price. I highly recommend this fun film and it's well worth the money. Check out that great Drew Struzan artwork too.
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