In Dreams is fairly intriguing for a good portion of its run time. Annette Bening plays a woman tormented with visions of a serial killer luring a little girl away in an apple orchard. When her little girl becomes the latest victim of the killer, she goes on a mission to stop the killer before they can claim another victim. Of course that's easier said than done when everyone thinks you're insane and they want to lock you away in an asylum.

Neil Jordan fills In Dreams with tons of style and beautiful cinematography, but the story itself falls apart a little after midway through. After such an intriguing set up, the film can't help but disappoint once our leading lady meets up with the killer and they try to explain why they're doing it. It quickly becomes tedious and dull.

The usually excellent Bening is a bit of a histrionic, manic mess here and a lot of her line readings inspire more laughter than anything else. She's playing to the back of the house and it's equal parts deliciously campy and infuriating because it renders her character less a real person and more of a performance.

In Dreams still has a few things going for it. It's rich in dreamlike, fairy tale mood, so if that's something you like, you might find that's enough to keep you interested, but the story itself isn't very memorable.

The color red is very significant in In Dreams, in everything from the apples that seem to represent Claire's (Annette Bening) fears to the red dress that she is dressed in the numerous times that she 'dies' to the weird red color of Vivian's (Robert Downey Jr.) hair towards the end of the film. The color red is used to constantly remind the audience of the tenseness and fear in the film.

Ironically enough, the first thing that went through my mind when I saw Robert Downey Jr. as the psychopath as he approached Claire toward the end of the film was that he was horribly miscast in this film, and that his presence would inevitably lead to the ultimate disappointment that I expected to feel after the movie ended. However, aside from the goofy contact lenses that he wore and the obviously dyed hair, I was surprisingly impressed with his contribution to the film. In the film's closing scene, in particular, he was able to deliver one final performance that left jaws dropped as the credits began.

In Dreams is definitely not for everyone. I think that for this particular film, there will be people who loved it, people who hated it, and people who just didn't understand it, with probably not much in between. Unfortunately, it was much more effective on the big screen than on video, but with a healthy twist of the volume knob, it can be made to have virtually the same effect. Just don't watch it alone if you live out in the woods!

I've liked pretty much all of Annette Bening's movies, although I did think that Neil Jordan's "In Dreams" should have come out as a little bit more given what all seems to have gone into it. As it is, I've seen lots of movies that portray people's dreams being more than just dreams and possibly showing something evil. This one isn't terrible, but I've seen this sort of thing so many times that there's nothing really new here. The movie's main strength is it's dreary, nearly Gothic setting.

So, it's worth seeing maybe once. The movie just might give you a different impression of Annette Bening, plus co-stars Aidan Quinn and Robert Downey Jr.

So just remember what Roy Orbison sang...