MOVIE REVIEW - Dream House

Daniel Craig leaves James Bond and a bunch of other tough guy characters behind for his family man role in Dream House.

After seeing Dream House, I can't decide if it is supposed to be thrilling, scary or both. It is neither. I can't tell you this is a bad movie, but I can't sit here and tell you it's a good one. There are plenty of stars. Craig, Rachel Wiesz, and Naomi Watts. And seemingly the time of year is right for a movie like this. But in fairness, Dream House just lays there. It darn near sent me to Dream Land!

Craig stars as a family man with a lovely wife and two equally lovely young daughters. They buy this house that seems haunted. Come to learn that there was a family killed in this house years earlier, and the husband was the person thought to have killed his entire family. As they they set out to find out who it was that actually did the murders, who knows what they might find.

I think that is supposed to be the thrilling part, but I was completely underwhelmed. Dream House lost me right out of the gate with a super boring first 30 minutes. It does recover if you stick with it, but it can only come up to mediocre at best, before settling for poor at the end. It tries so hard to be smart, but it's not. Oh, they try to throw in this twist in the final few frames, but you're done. Long done. You go, "Yeah, yeah"..as you are walking out as the credits roll.

Craig is hard pressed to pull off the family man thing on screen. Good for him branching out, but this is poorly staged. When you see him with the little girls, he's holding some other persons kids. As he literally is, but the point is, he looks out of water. This role was a throw away role for him. This was a good waste of real star power in a movie that may have required a star, but shouldn't have gotten one. It's just not that good of a script.

Dream House. If you must. Otherwise this movie will be on TNT every weekend in a couple of years.