BICENTENNIAL MAN (1999) *** The problem isn't that it's not a children's movie and it's not an adult's movie either, nor is that a strength. Christopher Columbus has been frequently, and fairly, denounced as a purveyor of sub-Spielbergian schmaltz, and it's also true that at times he can put together stretches of challenging, meaningful, emotional cinema. So he's something of a mercurial talent, and this is his film, far more so that it is Robin Williams' (who spends most of his screen time lost in what appears to be a 19th century diving apparatus, and only rarely launches into one of his patented staccato-sharp monologues of whimsy). The first twenty minutes or so are not terrible, but they repeatedly remind you why Spielberg is better at the pseudo-riveting inner workings of a fictitious borderline functional bourgeoisie familial alignment, and at tying things he finds within to more substantial things he finds without. Then, subtly, Columbus begins weaving a web: it's a pretentious and superficial web in a way, sure, but it also includes at very least amusing perceptions on the importance of appreciating sex (I think most of us are with him there), humour (maybe a few more are realizing that they're missing out on something), having fingers (you know, he's pulling that sense of surviving a near-death experience, the joy of everything, the colossal importance of the lack of limitations in tears), and even the taste (rather than affect) of beer. Having lassoed us like fatted calves, Columbus goes irreverently and overboard flippant and fires off a spectacular and enthusiastic cathexis of technical and narrative risk-taking that absolutely climaxes with the best ever (of seemingly endless) cinematic use of Aretha Franklin's "Respect." It was stunning. He should have stopped. Instead he wanders back into soap opera schmaltzy land-looking for Spielberg to stage a dual perhaps-and wastes 45 more minutes with observations so scant as to make you reassess the ones that impressed you earlier, generally stoner-level sophomoric schlap about immortality and the necessity of marriage licenses. It doesn't all fail entirely in terms of manipulation, but even when it doesn't the levels are so low as to absolutely obscure the threshold to sublimity that had been previously realized. So, I recommend watching it, definitely, and turning things off or walking out as soon as the Queen of Soul finishes singing.
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