Tom Hanks is young and charming playing a little boy in a grown man's body. A youngster with growing pains makes a wish one night (via a fortune teller machine) to be "big" and the following morning wakes up to a new reflection in the mirror: a hairy guy with long legs. Director Penny Marshall works this material with a light, sensitive touch, but when Hanks falls into a job at a toy development company, and inadvertently romances co-worker Elizabeth Perkins, the scenario becomes a rather uncomfortable big business satire, a fish-out-of-water fantasy which smacks of commercial pandering (with echoes of "Being There" besides!). Audiences at the time didn't seem to mind, however the film hasn't aged well, while the mercilessly drawn-out finale has romantic delusions which seem just a bit jarring. ** from ****
Review of Big
