BIG
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1988 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: BIG places in the body-switch derby
just a nose behind VICE VERSA. Penny Marshall gives the
story some genuine feeling but the script has problems. With
a good supporting case, BIG rates a +1.
Every once in a while the Law of Averages works especially well or poorly for filmmakers. Columbia made MAROONED just before Apollo 13 and THE CHINA SYNDROME just before Three-Mile Island. On the other hand, three different filmmakers independently decided to make the films PLACES IN THE HEART, COUNTRY, and THE RIVER a few seasons back, all "save-the-farm" films. Of late it has been "child-and-adult-changing-places" films. In little more than a year, we have seen LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON; VICE VERSA; and 18 AGAIN. Now Tom Hanks joins the ranks of Dudley Moore, Judge Reinhold, and George Burns, playing a younger person in an older person's body.
Well, the first major difference is that this is not two people changing places. The story is not really two stories of people adapting to sudden age change. Instead we have a 13-year-old suddenly finding himself about twice that age. Josh Baldwin finds a mysterious wish-granting machine at a carnival. After this point the story gets more realistic and at the same time less so. Josh's own mother thinks the older version of him (played by Tom Hanks) is a kidnapper and he has to flee, with the help of a friend, to Manhattan. He is a child who for the first time is seeing the gritty real world without the protection of his parents. Then the realism dissolves as he enters the business world and finds his winning, boyish ways open doors for him. Previous versions of the idea have children in older bodies trying to seem normal and failing miserably or at least humorously. Hanks wears silly-looking clothing and acts like a kid and in some sort of film blanc manner it all works out for him as if he was Chauncey Gardner from BEING THERE. His secret boyhood catapults him to success in business and love in the toy business. None of this is very believable. And on top of that, the ball of string that I collected as a boy may have had more loose ends than BIG, but I doubt it.
Supporting Hanks is Elizabeth Perkins, who played a second banana role in ...ABOUT LAST NIGHT. As the woman intrigued by the boyish Hanks, she reminds one at times of Debra Winger and at other times of Jill Clayburgh. Also on hand are the venerable Robert Loggia (whose second career in film seems more successful than his first) and John Heard, who tarnishes some of his earlier nice-guy roles playing an ambitious executive. And who can forget the grungy hotel clerk played by Rockets Redglare? And the whole production is directed by Penny Marshall--formerly of LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY. I would say BIG is a step up from her first film, JUMPIN' JACK FLASH, but it still gets just a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper
mtgzz!leeper@rutgers.rutgers.edu
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews