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
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