Subject: REVIEW: PHENOMENON (1996)

From: [email-masked] (David N. Butterworth)
Date: 1 Jul 1996 15:09:32 GMT

PHENOMENON
                       A film review by David N. Butterworth
            Copyright 1996 David N. Butterworth/The Summer Pennsylvanian

Directed by Jon Turteltaub
Rating: ** (Maltin scale)

In "Phenomenon," John Travolta stars as George Malley, a big-hearted,
small-town auto mechanic who goes from everyman to einstein overnight.
This ersatz drama strives for depth and meaning but instead drips like corn
syrup.

There's a birthday party for George at the local watering hole.  All his
best friends are there.  During a chess game, George steps outside for some
air.  It's late.  He's alone.  He's had a few to drink.  There's a blinding
flash, a starburst, some celestial bolt of energy.  George is knocked flat
on his back.  When he comes to he wanders back into the bar.  Checkmate!
George's first miracle.  From thereon, George acquires an insatiable
appetite for knowledge.  Suddenly he's a 2-3 books a day man.  By the end
of the film he's a 4-5 books a day freakshow.  He can perform telekinetic
party tricks with pens and pencils and other paraphenalia.  He can break
mirrors, predict earthquakes, and feel other people's pain, but he can no
longer sleep at night.  George's newfound skill set unbalances the
equilibrium of the sleepy market town.  He alientates his friends with his
cosmic powers.  They're scared of what he can do, but they're much more
interested in what the UFO looked like than in his brilliant new ideas and
inventions.  Naturally enough, George is soon picked up by the FBI which
considers him a security risk.  They want to poke him and prod him, have
him crack codes and name as many mammals as he can in sixty seconds (he
does so alphabetically, which I suspect most people can).  A Berkeley man
is also interested.

George might be able to unravel high-speed morse patterns but he can't
decipher women.  Lace (Kyra Sedgwick) is a case in point.  It's clear she
has some humongous bug up her butt.  About men, generally.  About her
husband, specifically, who walked out on her.  Sure, she has every right to
spurn George's advances.  Once or twice, maybe, or even a dozen times.  But
after about fifty or so you wonder if they had to make a **movie** about
it!

Sedgwick is pensive and furrowed and a little bit dour.  Hers is
essentially a non-part; we learn more about Lace's kids than we do about
her.  She makes artistically-challenged chairs but that's about it.
Travolta's George tries to win her over with that irresistible teddy bear
grin of his: "I'd love to get my hands on your carburetor" he tells her.
Yes, he actually says that.

Travolta is as darling as ever; Forest Whitaker (as George's pig-farming
friend Nate, who carries a torch for Diana Ross) and Robert Duval (the
town's crusty general practitioner) are typically solid in support;
Sedgwick, as discussed, is wasted.

"Phenomenon" is occasionally cute and mostly inoffensive but its soundtrack
is truly grating.  Not so much Thomas Newman's high fructose score, but
more the preponderance of "hit" songs that conveniently punctuate the
visuals just when the movie starts to drag.  Peter Gabriel's "I Have the
Touch," for example.  Duh!  Another bonehead ballad underscores a
haircutting sequence that's about as close to "Ghost" as you're gonna get,
with scissors and shaving cream standing in for potter's wheel and wet
clay.

Billed as a feel-good movie, "Phenomenon" coddles the viewer for near on
two hours with picturesque scenes of rolling farmland, heartfelt human
situations, poignancy, expectation and hope.  It observes for long periods
of time without muscling in on anything.  It bides its time.  Then,
finally, it beats you about the face and neck with its message about the
human spirit in some revelatory denouement that is at once flagrant and
unnecessary.

Cut the songs, beef up Sedgwick's role, don't sit the fence between fantasy
and reality, and you've got yourself a better movie already.  Failing that
re-edit, "Phenomenon" should be avoided by anyone with an intolerance to
saccharine.

--
David N. Butterworth