Film Review: DREAMSCAPE (1984, Joseph Ruben)

Stars: 4 of 5.

Running Time: 99 minutes.

Notable Cast or Crew: Dennis Quaid (ENEMY MINE, INNERSPACE), Kate Capshaw (INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, SPACECAMP), Max von Sydow (THE SEVENTH SEAL, MINORITY REPORT), Christopher Plummer (THE SOUND OF MUSIC, A BEAUTIFUL MIND), George Wendt (CHEERS, HOUSE), David Patrick Kelly (COMMANDO, THE CROW, TWIN PEAKS, THE WARRIORS), Peter Jason (THEY LIVE, PRINCE OF DARKNESS), Chris Mulkey (TWIN PEAKS, QUIET COOL), Eddie Albert (ROMAN HOLIDAY, THE HEARTBREAK KID). Music by Maurice Jarre (LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, THE CELEBRITY GUIDE TO WINE). Casting by Johanna Ray (TWIN PEAKS, MULHOLLAND DR., KILL BILL, SHOWGIRLS, COOL AS ICE, BLUE VELVET). Special makeup effects by Craig Reardon (THE GOONIES, DICK TRACY, POLTERGEIST). Special effects by John Eggett (NIGHT OF THE COMET, THE PIRATE MOVIE), Jim Doyle (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, BREAKIN' 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO), and Jim Aupperle (THE THING, ROBOCOP 2, BEETLEJUICE). Directed by Joseph Ruben (THE STEPFATHER, SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY). Written by Ruben, David Loughery (PASSENGER 57, STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER), and Chuck Russell (NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET III: DREAM WARRIORS, THE BLOB '88).

Tag-line: "Alex Gardner has an extraordinary gift. The government wants it...The scientists want it... To keep it may cost him his life..."

Memorable Quote: "So, Jane, what you do here, in effect, is count boners."

In a familiar, darkened alley:

"It's been a while!"
–"Sure has. Whaddya got for me?"
"A riddle. What do you get when you combine David Lynch's casting director, the writer of NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET III, the makeup effects dude from DICK TRACY, and a villain who's a combination of Freddy Krueger and Revok from SCANNERS?"
–"If the VHS art you're clasping is any indication... an INDIANA JONES rip-off?"
"Yeah, I don't know why they did that. It's not really like INDIANA JONES at all, unless you consider Kate Capshaw's presence and a stop-motion snake monster to be the full Indy experience.

'Snakes with hands... why'd it have to be snakes with hands?'

Frankly, it's a paranoid science-fictional political thriller that's lot more like SCANNERS, THE FURY, or FIRESTARTER. You could even call it a proto-INCEPTION. Dennis Quaid plays a psychic on the run from the government. He's using his abilities to win big at the racetrack when he's hunted down by special agents Peter Jason

and Chris Mulkey."

–"Wow, that's some genuine '80s street cred right there! I'd watch that MIAMI VICE rip-off."
"You ain't seen nothin' yet. Quaid is then delivered unto Max von Sydow and Kate Capshaw, who are running a sleep research center. They believe that Dennis Quaid can use his psychic abilities to enter other people's dreams and heal their neuroses.

You will note this is not Willie Scott

They believe this because they already have a psychic who can enter dreams. And while you're busy in the shower, he's in your bedroom, wailing on your saxophone."
–"Uh... what?"

"And his name is...

D...

P...

...motherfuckin' K!  DPK! That's right, David Patrick Kelly!"
–"From TWIN PEAKS? From 'Warriors, come out and play-yee-yay?' You're the only person on Earth who calls him that."
"That's definitely not true."
–"But I do appreciate that levitating saxophone squeal. Looks like this movie's '80s trash element just went into overdrive."
"Ohhh yes. So Dennis Quaid agrees to work with the dream researchers after he gets over the spartan decor

'Who's your decorator, Darth Vader?'

and enjoys some serious dive bar pitchers with Max von Sydow."


–"Why doesn't Max von Sydow ever invite me out for beers? And what bar is that?"
"Supposedly it was called the Village Pub, was in Santa Monica, and has been closed down for a while. But I couldn't find a whole lot of information about it. Annnyway, with DPK comes the next phase of the film and the main plot: evil CIA spymaster Christopher Plummer hijacks the project in order to manipulate and assassinate the U.S. president... in his dreams... using DPK as a dream assassin!"

–"That's quite something. You're right, this kinda sounds like a higher-stakes version of INCEPTION. But didn't you say something earlier about... snake monsters?"
"I sure as shit did! This dream world's way more like Freddy Krueger's. Anything––and everything––can happen. You want snake monsters? We got that.

DR. CALIGARI by-way-of evil '80s funhouse?


DPK with.... Freddy Krueger fingers?

Rippin' out hearts like he's in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM?

Well, guess there's one more thing to connect it to INDIANA JONES.

Droppin' one-liners like he's James Bond?"

'Have a heart,' he says. [tosses heart]

–"This looks completely insane."
"I haven't even gotten to George Wendt yet."
–"What?! Norm?"
"He plays a Stephen King-style horror writer who has a host of conspiracy theories about the whole dream-assassin operation... and it turns out he's right. Naturally, we first meet him at Max von Sydow's favorite glorious dive."

–"Is George Wendt legally allowed to not be at a bar?"
"Hard to say. Also, did I mention that DPK has dreamworld laser nunchucks with morningstar handles?"



–"Okay, okay, goddamit! You got me! I'm sold."
"I knew that'd take you over the edge."
–"Why have I never seen this before? Why has the universe conspired to keep this film from me?"
"It's a cruel world, my friend, and rarely does it make sense. But I think it's going to be okay. You have a copy of DREAMSCAPE now."

Only now does it occur to me... FIREFOX (1982)

Only now does it occur to me.... that Clint Eastwood basically outsourced the villains of his Cold War caper FIREFOX to the Lucas/Spielberg industrial complex.

The Russian villains you see before you are: Kenneth Colley (Ken Russell veteran and "Admiral Piett" from THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK),

Ronald Lacey ("Toht" from RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK),

and Wolf Kahler ("Sgt. Gobler" from RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK):

To balance things out, we have John Ratzenberger (CHEERS, "Major Derlin" from THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK), essentially reprising his role from EMPIRE (Rebel on an ice planet) as an American soldier fighting the Evil Empire from the North Pole.

Because I have to tip my hat to the outliers, another of the Russian villains is Klaus Löwitsch, a legitimately Great Actor who may bear some resemblance to Corbin Bernsen, but is in fact one of the most talented players to come out of the New German Cinema and a veteran of no less than five Rainer Werner Fassbinder films. It's probably not too much of a stretch for you to understand that he is completely wasted here.

Apologies, Mr. Löwitsch.

The film itself was a box office smash at the time, but today it plays like a second-tier, phoned in cold war thriller, á la Eastwood's own THE EIGER SANCTION or Peckinpah's THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND. Author Howard Hughes (AIM FOR THE HEART: THE FILMS OF CLINT EASTWOOD) probably sums it up best with, "Less a 'Firefox', it's more of a damp squib, or at best a smoldering turkey."

The opening is kind of a proto-COMMANDO, with shirtless Eastwood as a veteran in pastoral environs trying to enjoy his retirement when he's pulled out to do "one last job." In this case, the Last Job is stealing a top-secret Soviet fighter plane.

I guess there's an understated sci-fi aspect to the film with a "mind-control helmet" that pilots the Soviet plane via telepathy, but that's not even important, so you don't have to worry about it.

Also, for a Cold War actioner, there's not a lot of action. In fact, the entire plot could likely be reduced to about three scenes––therefore, I'm not sure why it runs 2 hours and 15 minutes. Ah, well.


It's also perhaps worth mentioning that the 'thrilling' dogfight is simplistic enough so as to prep us for the eventual Atari game tie-in; and despite using a superior "Reverse Blue-Screen" technology, it still looks inferior to the Battle of Hoth in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. Out of the 39 completed films Clint Eastwood has directed, I have now seen 37 of them (for the curious, my only gaps are HEREAFTER and THE 15:17 TO PARIS). Only THE EIGER SANCTION, SULLY, and INVICTUS are as boring as this one. I prefer BREEZY, for godssakes. BREEZY.

Only now does it occur to me... MAD MAX: BEYOND THUNDERDOME

Only now does it occur to me... that Mel Gibson's entire directorial output may have been inspired by his experiences on set of MAD MAX: BEYOND THUNDERDOME.  It has facial disfigurements like THE MAN WITHOUT A FACE, the majestic and patriotic Gibson-wig from BRAVEHEART:

torture and desert suffering like PASSION OF THE CHRIST:



Mayan fashion and gauntlets of brutality like APOCALYPTO:

and I see Gibson even has a new film in pre-production called HACKSAW RIDGE, and I gotta say– MAD MAX has always had plenty of hacksaws!  Clearly, therefore, the auteurist "Genesis," if you will, of the Gibsonian worldview was born... in the THUNDERDOME!

Speaking of which, the Thunderdome is terrific.

It's like TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE meets BLOODSPORT at a postapocalyptic S&M dungeon...

Is that a human catapult/sex swing?

...though I have to tell you, for a movie called BEYOND THUNDERDOME, there's only one scene set in the Thunderdome.  Bit of a disappointment, there: I wanted a full, feature-length Aussie/Ozzie kumite.

This is a fascinating film, however; and while it's possibly the weakest of the MAD MAX trilogy, it's never uninteresting– it's like Terry Gilliam and Alejandro Jodorowsky collaborated on an 80s grindhouse flick that thinks it's LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (they even hired the legendary Maurice Jarre to do the score, and he inexplicably quotes LAWRENCE, WEST SIDE STORY, and the "Klingon Theme" from STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES)

and then somebody invited Tina Turner to the party, telling her to wear Princess Leia-cocktail strainer buns and a chainlink shirt (as opposed to the chainlink sweater from COMMANDO)

and she forces Mel Gibson audition to be her backup dancer (or maybe it was her assassin?  all I remember is that she said "You're the first to survive the audition!").  

Anyway, that's just about all I have to say, except to add that there's an actor in it whose first name is "Angry" (Angry Anderson, singer and activist), and that counts for something.  Here's hoping for an eventual sequel called, MAD MAX: 100% THUNDERDOME.