From: frankm@microsoft.com (Frank R.A.J. Maloney)
Subject: REVIEW: FOREVER YOUNG
Reply-To: frankm@microsoft.com (Frank R.A.J. Maloney)
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1992 14:22:47 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.movies
Summary: r.a.m.r. #01649
Keywords: author=Maloney

				 FOREVER YOUNG
		       A film review by Frank Maloney
			Copyright 1992 Frank Maloney

     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
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews