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- Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
- Path: sparky!uunet!microsoft!hexnut!frankm
- From: frankm@microsoft.com (Frank R.A.J. Maloney)
- Subject: FOREVER YOUNG
- Message-ID: <1992Dec20.232153.28035@microsoft.com>
- Date: 20 Dec 92 23:21:53 GMT
- Organization: Microsoft Windows/DOS Users Ed Group
- Lines: 62
-
- FOREVER YOUNG is a film directed by Steve Miner, from a script by
- Jeffrey Abrams. It stars Mel Gibson, Elijah Wood, Isabel Glasser,
- George Wendt, and Jamie Lee Curtis. Rated PG.
-
- FOREVER YOUNG is yet another reincarnation of the Rip Van Winkle theme,
- of which we have recently had several examples of the cryogenic type:
- ENCINO MAN, LATE FOR DINNER, to name two. Hackneyed as the concept is,
- FOREVER YOUNG manages to be fresh and interesting because of the
- interesting performances by Mel Gibson and the other members of the
- cast. Unfortunately, the director and writer made a couple of egregious
- mistakes in visualizing how a sleeper adapts to a changed world and how
- a person ages.
-
- The best thing about FOREVER YOUNG is Mel Gibson. This is probably the
- romantic story that a lot of his fans have been waiting for. His acting
- is easy and natural, more impressive than the somewhat forced "I am an
- actor" approach to last year's HAMLET. The special charm he brings is
- the antiquated courtliness of a man from a half-century ago. His shock
- when he hears a respectable, single mother curse and casually discuss
- her lovers speaks volumes to establish his character and his
- fish-out-of-water situation. He is simply perfect in the part of the
- resuscitated test pilot searching for his past "across oceans of time",
- to borrow a phrase from another movie that might stand as the dark side
- of this one.
-
- Gibson is supported by a first-rate cast. Elijah Wood is the fatherless
- boy who finds Gibson and wants to keep him with a desperation that is
- nearly palpable. Jamie Lee Curtis plays the mother who befriends this
- strange stranger and who would like to be more than just friends.
- Gibson's friend who originally puts him on hold is played by George
- Wendt (of TV's "Cheers"); it is somewhat disappointing that we don't
- see more of Wendt than we do. Isabel Glasser is Gibson's love in the
- 1939 sequence in an promising debut.
-
- And, yes, Mel Gibson shares his well-regarded butt with us for a brief
- shot, tastefully half-lit. Brief, but memorable.
-
- There are inconsistency problems when Gibson wakes up to 1992.
- Push-button phones don't throw him, but answering machines do. There is
- the fact that, numerous Dracula movies notwithstanding, if a person
- were to suddenly age, his or her hair would not turn gray from the tips
- back to root, nor would it happen faster than hair can grow. Likewise,
- with the rest of geriatric makeup, it's well done -- Oscar material,
- really -- but wholly impossible. In a Dracula movie, this is not a
- problem. In a romantic film, much more grounded in our quotidian world,
- it is a problem. And leave us disregard out of charity the whole issue
- of Gibson's freezing and resuscitation -- fun scenes, but slightly
- insulting to anyone prepared to give it a minute's thought. LATE FOR
- DINNER was better on all these counts; unfortunately, LATE FOR DINNER
- did not have the star power of Gibson or his butt and so never
- attracted the audience it deserved.
-
- FOREVER YOUNG, on the other hand, could very well attract a large
- following. It is, despite playing fast and loose with laws of
- thermodynamics inter alia, an excellent entertainment: a romantic
- fantasy, just torrid enough to melt even this reviewer.
-
- I can recommend FOREVER YOUNG to you, even at full prices, but go to a
- cheap matinee if you can.
-
- --
- Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney
- "Well, I'm a little muddled." -- Glinda
-