"Dois Mio"      

PHENOMENON (PG) 

As much as I wanted to like this movie, I...uh...well...didn't.  John Travolta plays George Malley, a regular guy who on the night of his 37th birthday, gets "struck" by something.  Suddenly, he finds himself endowed with super and supernatural mental powers.  He learns foreign languages in minutes, he decodes secret government messages, he predicts earthquakes, and he moves pens and other stationery (and stationary) items with his mind!

Given all of that, this movie really has all kinds of potential, but unfortunately it never takes off.  The first half hour of the film simply meanders both cinematically and in terms of plot development, and the rest of the film, though it picks up a bit, does pretty much the same.  The romantic subplot between George and Lace (Kyra Sedgwick) also remains somewhat flat throughout the film, adding little to movie as a whole.  Here's an idea: if you're in the mood for the supernatural, go see an episode of The Twilight Zone or Amazing Stories (avail. on video).  For the freak show angle, I'd recommend The Elephant Man.  For that warm, feel-good kinda fuzzy feeling, see Field of Dreams.  Hey, a corn field's a corn field's a corn field...

IMPRESSIONS

Favorite scene: the "Data" test...is it me or is Data (Brent Spiner) showing up in every other movie around these days?  (He also has a small part in ID4)

Most distressing scene: Nate's (Forrest Whitaker) kitchen.  It's actually messier than mine!

Question left unanswered: did the FBI confiscate all those chairs from George's home, and if so are they being used somewhere?  

Responses from cyberspace.  Thanks for writing, folks!

jessfroggy@prodigy.net gives this movie  stars: "this movie sucked . It was so boring the best parts were shown the commercial i was glad he died because that meant the movie was almost over" (8/18/99)

greg.grenville@corp.netcom.com gives this movie  stars: "I have read 3 different reviews about this movie and every one of them gave this movie a bad rating. I must be in left field, because I thought this was one of the best movies this year, if not the best.I especially liked that there was no sex in this movie and no exagerated violence. I think this was one of johns best performances." (10/2/98)

Aladodger@aol.com gives this movie  stars: "make me gag...... the feelgood comedy..... whats that supposed to mean? it was all gloom and doom after the first 20 minutes...." (4/2/98)

ludwig@ari.fed.us gives this movie  stars: "I thought this was a good movie to see. It was well acted." (11/29/96)