Forever Young (1992)

Memorable, crazy movie

Highly Overrated But Still Good

A different way of telling a story

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

One of my favourites, I hadn't seen this in years but had fond memories and surprisingly its stood up really well. I enjoyed it just as much this time as when I saw it back in the early nineties.Mel Gibson is young, handsome (sane) and plays a 1939 test pilot who volunteers for a top secret experiment, after his lady love is injured in a car accident and falls into a coma. Not wanting to witness her ensuing death he allows himself to be cryogenically frozen for 12 months. George Wendt plays his scientist friend who is to wake him in one year...The movie then skips fifty years ahead where two boys find his capsule in a forgotten warehouse and accidentally thaw him out. The boys are excellent, a very young Elijah wood and Robert Gorman provide the comedy as they take Daniel home and smuggle him into their treehouse, teaching him about this new world and what he's missed. Daniel then comes to the rescue of single mom Jamie lee Curtis who in turn aids in his recovery and helps him try to find the scientist (or at least a relative) of those responsible for his 50 year freeze.The movie is part comedy, part adventure, some sci fi and a heartbreaking romance rolled into one. I think its a bit of a gem. Excellent work from everyone involved including the make-up team who towards the end must age Mel 50 years as he experiences side effects. The bad guys here are the FBI, looking to detain Daniel and learn from his involvement in the top secret experiment.One of my favourite scenes is when Mel teaches Elijah to fly in a pretend B52 bomber made from bits and pieces, glo lites, kitchen utensils and odd switches, but they film it in a way that it feels like they've taken off, and in a child's mind you believe. 5/30/16

it is easy to criticize it. it is not difficult to enjoy it. because it is not only a romantic movie but a deep honest declaration about force of details who defines life. a film about hope, dreams and love. with a seductive Mel Gibson who use exactly the note for define the story more than chronicle of a new life and sweet emotions. like many romantic films, it is predictable. like many romantic films , it is far to be out from the clichés circle. but it is honest and beautiful and fresh. it has good actors, a not bad script and interesting performances. and a theme who has not end. so, Forever Young. old fashion romanticism, Mel Gibson and his good job, the music and the crumbs from Romeo and Juliet are enough to seduce. and to remand the flavor and the grace of stories full with old fashion romanticism.

In 1939, military pilot Daniel McCormick's fiancée is comatose following being hit by a truck, so he volunteers to be experimentally cryogenically frozen. Overlooked in error, he is accidentally woken in 1992 at which point, with the help of a nurse and her son, he tries to make some sense of what has happened to him.Forget the science fiction element - the cryogenesis is unconvincing, and the "catch-up" ageing afterwards is, as far as I'm aware, completely without any sort of scientific or logical foundation.What you are left with is a romantic fable, cross-matched with some fish out of water humour, a dab of suspense, and some pleasing relationships between the characters.Curiously, the heart of the movie is not Mel Gibson (who is perfectly satisfactory as Daniel) nor Jamie Lee Curtis (whose samaritan nurse Claire is almost an incidental character), but 10-year old Elijah Wood who, even at that age, holds centre stage effortlessly for much of the film.Don't expect it to make any sense, and you may well enjoy it.

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