Z/Web

This was a short that preceded Dreamcatcher.

Author: William Goldman

Director: Lawrence Kasdan

I was so looking forward to this I worried I’d be disappointed because my expectations were too high. Instead, I forgot that movies based on books are rarely as good. In truth, this is better than the book in many ways: the background to the key Duddits character is explained earlier, we actually get to see the aliens, and many aspects of the novel which take hundreds of pages to explain are revealed in few seconds of screen time. Visually, the film is striking, the special effects are excellent, and the acting is good. The script is uneven: extraordinary in a few places, but shockingly poor in others (the usual flaw is it rushes too fast). But the real tragedy for me were the arbitrary changes. The first few changes were minor and didn’t bother me that much: the whole “alien virus causes telepathy” storyline was dropped, leaving only the four friends and Duddits as telepaths, and the “barn revolt” of the captured infecteds is left out. Okay, I can deal with that. But one of the best aspects of the book is the way telepathy is used by the friends (and the aliens) to get into other people’s heads. For instance, one of the aliens uses this to force a trucker to stab himself in the eye with a pencil: one of the most dramatic scenes in the book. That’s not in the film. Instead, the alien transforms into some sort of monster and kills people in ways we don’t really see (we’re shown shadows and see the dead guy covered in blood). It might be a minor difference, but why do this? The book’s approach was innovative and interesting. The movie’s method is the same-old alien monster thing we’ve seen in a thousand movies. Despite these flaws, however, the film was above average. It was interesting, suspenseful, and stylish — even if you compare it to the book.

But that was until we got to the end. Why, oh why, did they ruin it with that lame ending? The book’s ending made sense for the characters. But this goes way, way overboard. Not only does Duddits become a physical hero, absurdly fighting the alien (which transforms into a huge monster) and — get this — turning into a monster himself! That’s right, poor lovely Duddits, one of the best characters in literature, is really an alien. Granted, he’s working to help us, but in the end he turns into a monster and the two monsters fight! Ridiculous. That scene made everything that happened before it a mere joke. Maybe it “explains” Duddits’ special ability, but I’d rather that stayed a mystery. It made much more sense to me that he’s got an extraordinary gift to make up for his lack of other abilities. If you compare it to the book, this ending utterly destroys the film. If I was Stephen King, I’d disown it. It’s just terrible. If you watch this as just a movie, the ending’s not so disappointing, but it is trivial and ordinary, the kind of thing you’ve seen a hundred times before. I can’t figure out why Hollywood idiots do stuff like this. Coming from Kasdan and Goldman, I’m extra-disappointed. As far as I’m concerned, they’ve sold out and lost much of my respect for them. This was an excellent book, a film with so much potential and well-done until the final scene, and then everything’s just blown up like the infamous “everything was a dream” scene on Dallas. It’s still a film worth seeing, but be prepared for a real bummer of an ending.

Interesting film which questions the whole sexual identity thing. A perfectionist woman who has yet to find Mr. Right, ends up falling for a girl. But she’s so conservative and unsure about her sexuality that she doesn’t want to admit the relationship to her friends or family. Though it tries, there is nothing earthshattering here (