Forever Young (1992)

Purely Joyful Movie!

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

The 1990's were a booming decade for Mel Gibson. Fresh off of three Lethal Weapon movies, he was already establishing himself as a bankable American movie star. As the decade went on he would find a balance between commercial and personal projects. "Forever Young" seems to have a mix of both commercial and personal sides, and despite a few flaws in its screenplay it still entertains and holds your attention.The basic plot line has Gibson as a military test pilot in 1939 who wants to propose to the love of his life played by Isabel Glasser, but he chickens out, and as he does so, she goes comatose and nearly dies from being hit by a car. Gibson then asks his scientist friend (George Wendt), who has invented a cryogenic freezing system to freeze him for a year so he won't see Glasser die and if she is well to wake him up. He goes to sleep for over 50 years and wakes up in 1992 after a boy (Elijah Wood) and his friend find him in a nearly demolished military warehouse and revive him. After saving Wood's mother played by Jamie Lee Curtis from nearly being abused, he briefly moves in and begins a minor relationship with her until the climax, which I won't give away.So yeah it definitely has the ingredients and clichés of a made-for- TV movie. Gene Siskel said one reason he didn't like the film was he didn't believe the relationship between Gibson and Glasser and felt the movie failed to really explore the depths of it. I do agree with him on that minor note. A little more time exploring the relationship would have been nice to see. More scenes with Wendt's character would have been nice too, sadly he has very little to do, and his part really should have been more of an un-credited cameo. Of course "Cheers" was in its final season when this movie came out, so I'm sure the director felt "if people know Norm Peterson is in this movie along with Mel Gibson, I'm sure people will come!" Aside from those flaws, the relationship between Gibson and Wood is special. Wood is like the son Gibson wished he would have had, and I like that approach. I also like the scenes with he and Curtis and they definitely have some spark. The flying sequences and scenery are also very well done. Bottom line: A few clichés, and a little overly-sentimental like a Hallmark movie, but still enjoyable and fun to watch. Rating: *** out of ****. Rated PG for some language, brief nudity (Gibson's backside after he is revived from being frozen), and a brief sequence of domestic violence, along with some fist fighting. (Thankfully Gibson saves the day, before anything gets too bad). Suitable for children 11 and older.

With this title, i expected to begin the movie with the beautiful song eponymous but instead it was a good title from Goldsmith, reminiscing of "Total Recall". Then, i expected to see a story similar to "Captain America" or our French "Hibernatus" that is to say a character lost in a world that's totally different from the one he knows but finally, this movie is something else: it's rather a romance and a intergenerational tale. If the movie is sometimes a bit dumb (stealing a plane, his blind obsession to find only his friend, the fate of her lover), it's illuminated by three interesting characters played by a wonderful cast. It's great to see such sincere, rightful people who care, help each other. Miss Curtis was fantastic with her dynamism and short hairs and you can feel a real complicity between Mel and young Frodo. At last, I didn't expect the final fate of Mel that is in addition well supported by great make-up. In conclusion, this movie makes me happy and is full of surprises so i give it a "10" for that.

I knew the leading actor and actress, and later the young supporting star, and I had heard about some bits and pieces about the concept, so I was keen to watch it, from director Steve Miner (Friday the 13th Part 2, Friday the 13th Part III, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, Lake Placid). Basically, in 1939, reckless test pilot Capt. Daniel McCormick (Mel Gibson) loves his girlfriend Helen (Isabel Glasser) very much and is keen to propose marriage to her, but he cannot pluck up the courage, and then to his shock she is hit by a car. She is put into hospital suffering a coma that doctors say she will not wake up from, so with the success of his friend's experiment, Daniel asks Harry Finley (George Wendt) to cryogenically freeze him in a capsule for one year so he does not have to watch her die. Fifty five years pass, young boys Nat Cooper (young Elijah Wood) and his friend Felix (Robert Hy Gorman) are playing in an abandoned military storage warehouse, and they stumble on the cryogenic chamber, they (and others) assume it is a water heater, but fiddling with it they activate the reversal process. Daniel finds out he has woken up in the year 1992, and after taking some clothes he approaches the military to tell his story, but they assume he is crazy, so he walks away and decides to find out what is going on himself. He stole Nat's jacket, so he tracks the boys down in their tree house, they settle after initial terror, and they help him understand more about the future world he is now in, and he meanwhile plans to find out what has happened to Harry and Helen. The bond between Daniel and Nat is made even stronger when he introduces himself to Nat's single mother Claire (Jamie Lee Curtis) who offers him the couch to sleep on and stay in the house, after saving her an abusive ex-boyfriend. As he continues his search for Harry it is obvious that Daniel is suffering the effects of the status of years he has been living in suspended animation, so he body is starting to age. Claire finds out the situation he is in after he has an "attack" and is taken to hospital, and she receives a phone call from a woman claiming to know Harry Finley, it is his daughter Susan (Millie Slavin), but her father is dead. She gives Daniel information about the freezing process, and unfortunately the ageing process is irreversible, but she shocks with the revelation that Helen is alive, after recovering from the coma. The government, and particularly Cameron (Terminator 2: Judgement Day's Joe Morton) are after the man from the past, but Claire gives them the documentation about the freezing experiment, Project B, so no-one is arrested. Daniel with his time running out in the dramatic ageing races to the house that Helen is meant to be living, and Nat is a stowaway as he helps him, in the end his ageing does stop, and Daniel is overjoyed to see Helen and finally ask him to marry her, she accepts. Also starring Nicolas Surovy as John and David Marshall Grant as Lt. Col. Wilcox USAF. Gibson is charming as the man from the past who will do anything to be with his love, Curtis is nice as the single mother who he likes and she admires, and young Wood proves himself a great early talent. It is a really sweet story, you really root for Gibson as he tries to find the information he wants and ultimately reunite with his true love, the past meets present (future) concept makes for some fun moments of humour and interest, I think this is a very worthwhile romantic fantasy. Good!

A very touching film because of some extremely sentimental and poignant elements. The girl that holds your heart and to whom you cannot propose crosses a road and gets hit by a truck. Coma…, irreversible…, they say. Better get frozen for later than live through this death. Frozen by some doctor who dies and leaves you behind and you are abandoned in a hangar. A couple of naughty boys revive you and then the real nightmare starts. They all believe you are nuts of course, except the mother of one of the boys, a nurse by profession he saves from an ex-whatever who wants to rape her. Finding your identity after 53 years in ice, that's hard. But there is a slight problem with Dorian Gray's picture. You are the picture and your age shows fast. Will he find and marry his sweetheart and is she still alive? Will he escape the cops and the doctors? Who knows? What will the little boy who revived him do? Nothing to say here. Just keep in mind this film is a piece of romantic beauty and that's all. The visit of the air force base I remember I must have done it in the same period, around 1990, one or two years more or less. That was a funny experience and I would have loved meeting Mel Gibson in one of the jets. But well no luck boy. Mel Gibson is nothing but a celluloid baby who has no real existence and his life is a dream and in this case the dream could have turned into a nightmare. Mel Gibson is a very flexible actor and manages romantic situations or situations with kids just as well as he does mad situations with Max and his tribe, not to speak of the mythic religious rewriting of the passion or the whole cosmos. There is something like a certain Connors and Schwarzenegger in that Gibson, even if he is a difficult spouse to get a divorce from. Back to the future then.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID