I thought the movie adaptation of Stephen King's Dreamcatcher was remarkable; the photography, acting, pacing, direction, special effects, all of it was absolutely first-rate (Morgan Freeman, cast against type, is brilliant and frightening as hell).
But the real triumph of the film is the script. Goldman (with Lawrence Kasdan) have performed a miracle in the adaptation.
He and Kasdan did to the book what should have been done to it in the editing phase, and the result is a script that takes an ungodly amount of disparate elements (which, for me, in the book, never succeeded in coming together) and merges them into a cohesive, intelligent whole.
And I knew it was going to tank at the box office. It demands that the audience pay attention to every little thing going on. The first 45 minutes alone of this movie should be put on the roster for film school students.
If any of you X-Files or King fans didn't see this movie in the theaters, check it out on DVD, but be sure to get the widescreen version because it just doesn't look as good in pan-and-scan fullscreen.
The DVD features are decent, but not unusual. It includes four deleted scenes that I thought were pretty good, plus a joke deleted scene and the original ending. It also offers a production documentary, a special effects documentary, and an interview with King.