Bears about as much resemblance to Dean Koontz's novel as Jessica Simpson does to a rocket scientist. If you've read the book, I suggest you put it as far out of your mind as possible before watching the movie.
Watchers is your typical "Boy meets dog, dog turns out to be super-intelligent government lab experiment, dog and boy are pursued by super-intelligent and emotionally disturbed monster created by same lab, and, oh yeah, did I mention the shady government agents pursuing the monster pursuing the dog?" movie.
Corey Haim is the boy, Barbara Williams is his mother, Michael Ironside is one of the evil government guys, and Sandy the dog is, well, the dog (named Furface here; Einstein in the book).
The monster effects are ridiculously cheesy, much of the dialogue is laughable, the script rarely makes sense or is believable - a good example is Haim's character's unquestioning acceptance of the dog's intelligence, as if every Fido off the street can type messages on a computer keyboard or bark once for yes and twice for no! Hmm, it's gotta be the puppy chow, right? Haim's performance is enthusiastic but shaky, as he carries off the stupid dialogue with the least amount of skill. Ironside has been the highlight of many a bad movie, and this is no exception. He easily gives the best performance of the movie, although I'm compelled to add that the dog (who's a pretty darn good actor himself!) comes in a close second.
All in all, an atrociously dumb movie, and yet . . . And yet I watched it three times within a week. And yet I can't help liking it. Hey, what can I say, I have a taste for junk - and Michael Ironside (not that I've ever actually tasted Michael Ironside- I'm sure there are laws against that). But any movie that can make me laugh that hard (yes, even unintentionally) can't be all bad. Chalk it up to a guilty pleasure, a "yes I know it's insultingly stupid but I like it anyway" movie.
It's tough for me to rate this. On a normal scale I'm forced to give it a D-, but on my own personal cheese scale, it gets bumped up to an A-.
Yeah, I know. I'm weird like that.