You won't be disappointed!

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Ah, the memories. I saw this one a long time ago and was much impressed with the scary nightmare scenes and the sensuality of Kate Capshaws dream scene. I'll admit it wasn't that impressive when I saw it again a couple of years ago, but it's still a pretty enjoyable film.It's not very complicated, but it has tempo, the aforementioned Capshaw is still a sight for sore eyes, and Randy Quaid - flanked by the two acting giants Max Von Sydow and Christopher Plummer as rivals - is still an okay maverick of his time. And then there was this other, nasty, 'dreamlinker', played by David Patrick Kelly, who did a similar thing in 'The warriors' (1979)... "He did this to you! He did this to you!"And finally, the dreamscapes. They rather vary, but only the one with the construction worker was truly disappointing. The ones with The President were numerous and pretty cool; the post-apocalyptic red, some zombies or a mushroom cloud or some fine stop-motion stuff - yay! There was too little of it, unfortunately. All in all it was more like a sci-fi TV-movie with a whole lot of unnecessary dialogue.Out of sentimental consideration: 7 out of 10.

I really wish that I had seen this film, before I saw Inception. Of course you can't compare the graphics or special effects, in fact, the effects in Dreamscape are laughable by today's standards, but this was really the first movie to explore entering someones dreams. The story is wonderfully creative with unlimited possibilities, but at the time it was made, you couldn't rely on the special effects to make the movie, the way some films today do. What Dreamscape really needed was a young charismatic star to put the film over the top, and they found him in Dennis Quaid. The difference in his personality and the types of roles he chooses to take have done a complete turnaround over the last thirty years. The Dennis Quaid of today is a strong, emotionless character, who is determined to do whatever he sets his mind to. In Dreamscape he's funny, ambitious, and absolutely adds character to a story that could have gone either way. What the film loses in predictability and the sometimes slow pace, is more than made up for with Quaid's standout performance. I'd always heard good things about Dreamscape and how it was the inspiration for Inception, but it's a thirty year old film with outdated effects and some really cheesy stuff, I really didn't expect it to be as good it as it was.

I just watched this movie with my mom. We're both Dennis Quaid fans, and I have enjoyed his other forays into the scifi realm (Enemy Mine and Innerspace being a couple of them). However, this movie was completely uninteresting. All of the actors in the film seemed bored with their lines and characters. Quaid's Alex Gardner is rather bland. They try to play up his "bad boy" persona in the beginning, but he comes off as a self-righteous bum. Later attempts to make him appear good and selfless in the eyes of the audience come off as shallow. There was nothing there for me to believe that he would have any genuine interest in Kate Capshaw's character. Christopher Plummer plays a terrifically not-menacing "Big Bad". The only character that stands out is David Patrick Kelly's psychopathic Tommy, though there was not much subtlety in the presentation of his character.Though it had a great idea, the script does nothing interesting. It becomes predictable midway through the film. The final showdown is staged awkwardly. The special effects appeared to be incredibly cheap, even for the time (this was after Blade Runner and Alien...the "Snakeman" character here does not have anything on the lava monsters in "The Journey to the Center of the Earth"). Overall, the most striking aspect of this film is the by-the-numbers approach it took to making a scifi film. One gets the sense watching this film that it was trying to do something interesting with as little effort as possible.

Less an outright "horror" film than a sci-fi/fantasy actioner, DREAMSCAPE gets the score it does from me for reasons of fondly-remembered nostalgia, and because of its strategy of making up for the super low-budget special effects by front-loading the movie with some of the best actors ever assembled for an indie project like this. Dr. Paul Novotny (FLASH GORDON'S Ming, Max Von Sydow) has developed an extraordinary system that allows psychically-gifted subjects to enter the subconscious minds of other subjects and actually affect the shape and the outcome of their dreams, (hence the title.) His most gifted subject, Alex Gardner (Dennis Quaid) is the one he wants to work with the most. But it seems Alex abandoned Novotny's experiments some years ago, in favor of using his gifts to play the ponies AND the "honeys."With a little "friendly persuasion" from the project "facilitator", the sinister Fed Bob Blair (Christopher Plummer, still shaking off his SOUND OF MUSIC image), Alex comes reluctantly 'back into the fold', where Paul Novotny's associate, the curvaceous Dr. Jane DeVries (Kate Capshaw, the future Mrs. Spielberg) makes the prospect of participation a lot easier for Alex.Once on board, Alex immediately butts heads with the only other psychic who has successfully navigated the "dreamscape," the sociopathic Tommy Ray Glatman (David Patrick Kelly from 48 HRS. and THE WARRIORS), a very disturbed - and disturbing - individual who would seem a very unlikely candidate to be allowed to go stomping through somebody's head. Things become a lot more clear and sinister when Alex has a "chance" encounter with horror author and conspiracy theorist "Charlie Prince," (George Wendt in a very different role from 'Norm' on CHEERS.) I guess when Stephen King saw this movie, he must have taken this character as a sign that he had truly 'made it to the big time.'Charlie explains the situation to an already suspicious Alex: it seems that the President (Eddie Albert) has been having some vivid and horrifying nightmares about a nuclear holocaust, and his dreams have influenced his decision about what action to take at an important upcoming summit with the Russian government (yeah, THAT is how old this flick is, folks.) So, do the math. It isn't very hard to figure out what Blair and Glatman's connection is with Dr. Novotny's experiments, or that it's really important that Our Hero Alex steps up his game to stop them.So, yes, DREAMSCAPE obviously cribs from A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and even some parts of THE TERMINATOR. And the special effects, considered state-of-the-art in '84 are more than state-of-the-hokey now. (With all the newly advanced CGI technology, maybe it's time to dust this one off for a remake.)But the casting definitely works as everyone (particularly Kelly) deliver some strong, believable performances, and there are cameos by some familiar genre favorites, (Chris Mulkey, Kelly's co-star as part of the TWIN PEAKS ensemble, and John Carpenter favorite Peter Jason just to name two). And there you have it. For what it's worth to those who saw it decades ago (like Yours Truly), DREAMSCAPE still holds some entertainment value. For those who have never seen it, it's an interesting example of '80's indie film-making, and a chronicle of how far effects and makeup work have come since.