Touches You

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

I think the most obvious reason I wanted to watch it was because of the good cast list, but I also hoped it would be worthwhile enough, despite low ratings by critics, based on the book by Stephen King, directed by Lawrence Kasdan (Body Heat, The Big Chill, The Accidental Tourist, Wyatt Earp). Basically four childhood friends: Professor Gary "Jonesy" Jones (Damian Lewis), Joe "Beaver" Clarendon (Jason Lee), Pete Moore (Timothy Olyphant) and Dr. Henry "H" Devlin (Thomas Jane) are on an annual hunting trip in Maine. All four of them share telepathic powers, which they acquired as children, after saving mentally handicapped boy Douglas "Duddits" Cavell (Andrew Robb) from bullies and befriending him. Jonesy is able to make the annual trip, despite being a hit by a car six months ago, has a made a mysterious speedy recovery, at the cabin, Jonesy rescues a man named Rick McCarthy (Eric Keenleyside) from the snow, he was lost in the forest. Jonesy and Beaver allow the man to recover, suddenly a herd of animals are seen fleeing outside, followed by two military helicopters that announce the area is quarantined. Jonesy and Beaver return to the cabin to find a trail of blood from the bedroom to the bathroom, Rick is sitting semi-catatonic on the toilet, Rick is thrown from it by a worm-like creature that comes out of his bottom. Beaver attempts to trap the creature under the toilet lid, but it breaks out and kills him, Jonesy tries to escape, but is confronted by a larger alien creature called Mr. Gray, who emits a red-dust and possesses Jonesy's body. Meanwhile, Henry and Pete crash their SUV, to avoid hitting a frostbitten woman from Rick's original hunting party, Henry goes for help while Pete stays with the woman, she also dies and excretes a worm, Pete barely manages to kill it. In Jonesy's body, Mr. Gray tricks and kidnaps Pete, but Jonesy warns Henry telepathically to get away, Henry returns to the cabin to find Beaver dead, and the worm laying a group of alien eggs, to kill all the lavae, he grabs lighter fluid and sets the cabin on fire. Meanwhile an elite military unit, led by the slightly unhinged Colonel Abraham Curtis (Morgan Freeman), specialising in extraterrestrials, are trying to contain the alien exposure, Curtis plans to retire after this operation, and pass command to second in command and his trusted friend Captain Owen Underhill (Tom Sizemore). Curtis and Underhill lead an airstrike into a large forest where the alien spaceship have crash-landed, the aliens using telepathy ask for mercy, but most of the aliens are massacred with mini-guns and missiles, the alien ship self-destructs, destroying the remaining aliens and the two helicopters. Pete is killed by Mr. Gray when he tries to coerce him into cooperating, Jonesy realises the alien possessed his body to gain access to his memories, specifically about Duddits. Henry finds the concentration camp, he realises that all human casualties in quarantine are to be killed, he convinces Underhill to prevent this, going to Curtis and getting himself relieved. Henry and Underhill break out of the camp and head to the home of Duddits (Donnie Wahlberg), who is dying of leukaemia, Duddits informs them that Mr. Gray is headed for the Quabbin Reservoir to seed the water with alien larvae. Realising the danger that the planet is in, Curtis leaves the camp in his armed helicopter and tracks down Henry, Underhill, and Duddits, at the reservoir, he shoots Underhill down, he is mortally wounded and dies shortly afterwards. In the reservoir's pump house, Henry uses Underhill's machine gun to kill Mr. Gray's worm, but he cannot decide if Jonesy is possessed, but Mr. Gray exits his body when confronted by Duddits, who is himself an alien from a different race. Both aliens struggle, finally exploding in a cloud of red-dust which briefly resembles a dreamcatcher, now himself again, Jonesy steps on the final alien larva before it can escape and contaminate the reservoir. Also starring Mikey Holekamp as Young Henry, Reece Thompson as Young Beaver, Giacomo Baessato as Young Jonesy, Joel Palmer as Young Pete, Rosemary Dunsmore as Roberta Cavell and Michael O'Neill as General Matheson. Despite having good talent and names in the cast, and good source material of course, unfortunately what is brought to screen is not very well done, the CGI special effects are very average, and the atmosphere is not very effective, there are memorable moments, but not all for the right reasons, a silly but sort of watchable science-fiction horror. Okay!

I would never have thought I'd give any film with Morgan Freeman in it a bad review.It was almost as if all the actors were directed to act badly. Even a poor script can be saved by great actors but not in this case. Pommy accent to indicate the alien speaking? What the freaking hell?It felt like a 90's tele-movie. Those flashback scenes with the vomit inducing 'nice' virtuous, telepathic young boys: straight out of a Disney film. No kid ever did stuff like that, especially when they are in a group.And what the hell was the Duddits transformation about?Good special FX and CGI.

I didn't read the book, but the friend I watched with did. Yet we both had the same reaction overall. The first third was excellent, very involving, interesting, with shades of Stand By Me and Alien, but the last 90 minutes became less original, and by the end, I no longer cared much about the story or the characters. Having not read the book, I found the story extremely complicated, with so many characters, I kind of lost interest. It needed more of the scenes with the kids, so their characters' continuity would resonate better. My friend was also rather disappointed after liking the first half, so it probably isn't vital to have read the book. Left me feeling dissatisfied.

There are overrated movies and there are underrated movies.. This means : Popular opinion isn't necessarily always right. But then there are these over-underrated movies in rare cases which the ratings are extremely misleading for audience... I believe this one is one of these extreme cases. 5,5 rating for such solid movie is just outrageous and BS. I believe there are many sci-fi fans around here like me WHO really think in accordance with me in this case. How this movie is made is as its meant to be. Believe me but in the end one factor leads to this conclusion, the majority of the rating users are not necessarily within the sci-fi base or at least they don't really respect the features of this movie in this context, because this movie is not something ordinary in the end.