Basic plot: A guy dies, but sort of continues to follow old friends and loved ones until he learns to let go while helping them do the same.
I’m just going to spoil this movie as I see fit because there really isn’t any reason to go out of your way to see it at all. You don’t gain or lose anything by not seeing it. It is the very definition of “passable”. Not what I expect from Spielberg.
Although it has hints of Spielberg flair here and there, Always is the sloppiest movie of his I’ve seen. Richard Dreyfuss is awesome just as he will continue to be for all eternity, but he’s the lone shining beacon in this movie. Generally I love John Goodman but he doesn’t stand out here, and Holly Hunter works well as a very average looking heroine, but her cartoonish voice can be distracting.
The biggest problem is the incredible imbalance this movie constantly displays. It felt like no sooner would I start to think “This is a really good scene emotionally” just before it would take a huge turn into absolute melodrama or become corny beyond belief and completely ruin the moment. This literally happened in about three out of every five scenes for me.
The story also has a lot of things that bother me. I think there’s a good story to be found within the idea of the dead helping the living, but this one fails on a few too many levels. For one, I have trouble caring about forestfire fighters. Like, I’m sure that’s just because I don’t havea proper appreciation for the danger involved in flying planes over forests and dumping water on them, but even after watching this I have trouble fathoming how it could be THAT dangerous. Sadly, believing it IS that dangerous is a major pillar of this story. Think Top Gun, then take away all the excitement, then add in P.S. I Love You (which I haven’t seen, but the trailers tell me it’s damn near a rip off of this). That’s Always.
Secondly, the love part of the story is iffy. I applaud the movie for taking the time to explain WHY the two main characters loved each other before killing Dreyfuss, but his replacement clone that his girlfriend meets after he dies blows. It’s essentially this model-looking dude that happens to have every god damned quirk Dreyfuss had before he died. ALL OF THEM. Dreyfuss flies crazy? So does this guy. Dreyfuss plucked at his eyebrows? So does this guy. It just got silly and it didn’t help that the new guy isn’t actually half as cool as Dreyfuss whether he has the character’s quirks or not.
There are a handful of moments that made me go “That’s so Spielberg”, but there were far more moments that made me go “Spielberg is way better than this.” Meh. I’ll probably never watch it again.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:31 am
What you say pretty much backs up everything I’ve heard about this movie. This movie and 1941 are the two Spielberg films I have no desire to see. Spielberg might be my favorite director, but he doesn’t have a perfect record.
November 14th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Spielberg is still a god among men, but this whole Netflix mission has ended my run of being able to say “I’ve never seen a Spielberg movie that I didn’t really like.” I used to like being able to say that. I’ll least I’ll be able to revise with “I’ve seen every single Spielberg movie” by the end of next week.
1941 is on its way to my mailbox now. I’m not looking forward to it very much.
November 14th, 2008 at 11:22 am
No, no, no, no, no P.S. I Love You has none of the plot points of Always….. it doesn’t even compare one iota. LOL – can you tell how adament I am in correcting that piece of logic you had. Not saying you’d like it – I’m still not sure if I liked it or not.
I saw Always as a child and I remember loving it. Don’t know what I’d think of it as an adult.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
I was just going based on the trailers, and those make it seem like it’s about a guy who dies and his wife or girlfriend or whoever then falls in love with basically another version of him while being guided by letters he wrote before he died or something.
Basically, it sounds like they took out the opportunity for comedy (found in having the guy physically there, effecting things), which is one of the only thing that makes this one bearable, in favor of some sort of Nicholas Sparks-type plot.
Calling it a rip off of this was probably a stretch, but I think there are some similarities. Granted I can’t verify that until I’ve seen P.S. I Love You, but since I think P.S. I Love You sounds boring as balls, I don’t know that I’ll ever get around to it. The only reason I even watched this was because of Spielberg’s name.
November 14th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
It wasn’t the guy who had Dreyfuss’ quirks, it was Dreyfuss quirking through that guy. Do you get me? For instance, the guy only plucked his eyebrows when Dreyfuss was doing it.
Also, I enjoyed John Goodman’s character. The repetition of the oil smudge joke was so Spielberg.
I was never a big fan of Holly Hunter, probably because of her voice. Not so much her voice, but the way she talks. I can’t explain it. But it’s also one of the reasons I didn’t enjoy Incredibles when it first came out.
Overall, I liked this movie, it seems, more than you did. Although it did bother me that the new pilot went for Holly Hunter and not the red head from Species. I didn’t like that guy that much. He reminds me of Superman.
November 14th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
By the way, do you know Hap was Audrey Hepburn? I did not think that was her at all. Wow.
November 14th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I didn’t know that until afterwards when I was grabbing the Wiki page to link to from here and snag the poster. It was interesting to learn.
On the quirks: I didn’t notice that Dreyfuss was doing the eyebrow thing when the other guy was. That would explain it a bit if that’s true. I thought the whole idea was that he could only speak to them and they would think it was their own thoughts. Didn’t realize his actions had any effect, especially considering how non-receptive the replacement was to EVERYTHING he said.
I think a lot of the reason I didn’t like it very much was just because I disliked the new pilot guy so much. I just thought he was a stupid person and a bad replacement hero.
John Goodman wasn’t bad at all, he was just John Goodman. I was hoping for something a little crazier. And the weird thing about the oil smudge joke is that it felt more like a Spielberg thing to me UNTIL they repeated it so much. Then it just got kind of corny to me.
I don’t hate the movie, I just think it’s incredibly mediocre.
May 25th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
[...] Always (1989) Posted: 26 May, 2009 | Categories: CA – but not the state. By: Caleb. [...]