By Nick Nitkowski

“In Your Dreams” is the latest animated film to grace the ever-growing stream of content brought to you by Netflix. It follows the story of a young girl named Stevie living life with her family but must endure her annoying brother Elliot. When Stevie and Elliot discover a book that mentions the Sandman and recites an incantation from the book, the two start to share dreams together. Now, they must venture out into the dream world to find the Sandman to make their dreams real, but in order to do so, they must also face their nightmares.

This was a movie that was nowhere near my radar of movies to watch, but I saw the trailer and thought that it looked decent compared to other animated movies from Netflix, so I figured I’d give it a shot and see how it is. Plus, it was the only way to get a theatrical experience for this particular movie, so I figured why not. I was literally the only person in the theater along with the two studio representatives. It was basically a private screening just for me, which is exciting in a way, but was the movie itself worth it?

I thought the movie was okay. I was not really impressed by anything in it. If anything, it was pretty basic. I’ve seen way more interesting family films regarding dreams than this latest entry into the genre. From the overall story to the art direction, this movie was mid-tier in comparison. The dream sequences and the creativity within were nothing special. Even the nightmares in this film felt tame compared to other nightmare sequences I’ve seen in family films.

Another issue that I had with this film is that it felt like it was trying way too hard to be funny. Both visual gags and verbally delivered jokes just fell flat to me. For example, there is a running gag centered around Elliot and multiple slices of cold cuts that wasn’t funny the first time, but the movie insists that it’s hilarious. Same thing with one character mispronouncing another character’s name until the very end. It just tried its hardest to be funny, but I just couldn’t crack the comedy code in its wildest dreams.

Another unfortunate observation of this film is the fact that it is highly predictable even though it tries not to be. I was able to predict important things very early on before their reveals. It also tries to have a deep and meaningful message for its young viewing audience, but just could not drive it home and the most unfortunate part of that is that it actually could have done so, but instead played it too safe and in doing so lost all weight behind the message that it was trying to convey.

Overall, “In Your Dreams” is a harmless movie, but it also has nothing unique or special about it either. It seems that after Netflix’s successful “KPop Demon Hunters”, it’s trying too hard to through any animated project under their belt in a sad attempt to hopefully have lightning strike again repeatedly without even grasping as to how or why it successfully struck in the first place. This was an unfunny and predictable spectacle that could have been more than it is, but instead settled for mediocrity. If nothing else, it will serve as a distraction for children, but if their expecting this movie to be on the level of Disney or have a shot at the Oscars for Best Animated Film, they are definitely dreaming.

2.5 stars