The marketing campaign for this fantasy drama tells us Some things in life just cant be explained. Thats misleading advertising, since the films colossal boo-boo is in its ill-judged insistence on explaining everything, and in a way few will appreciate. Face it, there has never been much of an audience for whimsical tragedy.
Deceptively, the first hour and some of Gerald DiPegos screenplay, beguilingly directed by While You Were Sleepings Turteltaub, is a Capraesque charmer, busy with smalltown neighbourliness, comedy and dogged wooing. Even the central characters name evokes Its A Wonderful Life sentiment. George Malley (Travolta) is a cheerful, simple man with limited gifts: he can fix cars and grow a garden. His sweetness and kindness make him beloved, however (at least by all but the sorrowful divorcee Sedgwick, with whom he is smitten) and his 37th birthday is an occasion on which the townfolk party hearty.
That night, while looking at the stars, George spots a UFO-like light that zaps him unconscious. When he comes to, his intelligence begins to accelerate as billed, phenomenally and his newly developed genius is accompanied by strange and remarkable powers, such as telekinesis. George uses his linguistic, scientific and electromagnetic magic to do good deeds save a life, protect the environment, make a match for lonesome best bud Nate (Whitaker) but people turn away from him in fear and suspicion of what he has become.
Alas, the mystery, wonder and delightful complications screech to a halt with a dismaying revelation that is grim at best and, most will feel, a cruel cheat. The last half hour reveals that whats afoot is nothing like what one either hopes. The film is unsatisfyingly different from what it seemed to be.
The saving grace is Travoltas entirely captivating performance, which keeps you on board long after the plot has derailed. There are, too, nice roles for Whitaker and Duvall as his loyal buddies, and it is refreshing to see smartness linked with goodness and heroism. But yikes, what looked like a sunny smash hit is rained out.