Year:
1998
Studio:
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
Movie:
2/5
DVD:
3/5
Teaser
Sometimes life sucks and then you die. For pediatric psychiatrist Chris
Nielsen (Robin Williams), death is only the beginning. The afterlife
certainly isn't anything he expected it would be. But with the help of
Albert (Cuba Gooding Jr) and some of the other after-dead, he begins to
accept his fate and realizes that it is much better here than on Earth.
Until Chris' widow Annie (Annabella Sciorra), in her despondency of
losing Chris only a few years after losing their two children, commits
suicide. Guess what? Suicides don't go to heaven (surprise surprise).
Yet there is no way that Chris is going to let his soul mate spend
eternity in her own Hell. So with the help of Albert and The Tracker
(Max Von Sydow), Chris is going to find Annie and bring her back.
Movie
An ambitious movie with subtle nuances yet a plodding pace that bored
me to tears. "What Dreams May Come" is an almost two hour movie and the
first real challenge appears but 40 minutes from the end. Yes, Chris
dies, but that's quick and easy, and then he has to accept he's dead,
again quick and easy, and then he has to come to terms with heaven, and
again it's quick and easy. It's a smooth road with only minor bumps and
for over an hour it gets quite boring.
Then we come to the last part of the movie where Chris and company go
to hell to look for Annie. Great visuals, just as there has been great
visuals throughout the movie, and yet I never felt like they weren't
going to find Annie. And then once Chris finds Annie I never felt like
he was going to fail to rescue Annie. All in all it makes for as much
fun as watching a pretty screen saver. I give it a "2" rating for what
they tried to do with the movie.
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Actors
Robin Williams gets to be happy and sad and angry and lots of emotional
dramatic things. But is it just me or was everytime he was supposed to
be happy it looked forced? It was also painful to watch scenes when
Chris and Annie are young, because you can only do so much with makeup
-- Robin Williams is old, no getting around that. In contrast Cuba
Gooding Jr looked much more comfortable in his role. He actually looked
like he was having fun.
Annabella Sciorra had the toughest role since she had to play a
character that is grief-strickenly and suicidally depressed for much of
the movie. They did a good job making her colorful and beatiful when
she was happy and dressing her gray with a sort of asylum makeup when
she was sad. Max Von Sidow delivered a good job in a type of role he
often plays. When I saw Rosalind Chao, who had a good-sized part in the
movie, I thought "Keiko!"
DVD
Widescreen format movie. Two similar theatrical trailers are
unremarkable. The featurettes (3 of them) are vaguely interesting. The
alternate ending both explains the ending better and yet is a worse
ending than in the movie. There is also a commentary track (under the
languages section) by director Vincent Ward. In between long gaps of
silence he does explain quite a few of the subtle points in the movie.
But like the movie, the commentary would be more valuable if you could
just get interested enough to pay attention.
Recommendations
I can see why this movie bombed at the box office. This is an intense
character drama that is probably better suited to book form. And so I
recommend reading the book that the movie is based on, "What Dreams May
Come" by Richard Matheson. Not that I've read the book myself but it
can't be any worse than the movie. |