"Forever Young" opens in the year 1939. Daniel McCormick, a test pilot with the US Army Air Force, sees his girlfriend Helen seriously injured in a road accident which leaves her in a coma. Helen is not expected to recover, and the grief-stricken Daniel volunteers to take part in a secret cryonic freezing experiment being carried out by his close friend, Harry Finley. Daniel hopes that he can be put in suspended animation for a year, so that he doesn't have to watch Helen die. Unfortunately, Harry dies shortly afterwards, and in the chaos following the outbreak of World War II the experiment is forgotten. Daniel remains asleep in his chamber, abandoned in a military warehouse for the next fifty-three years.
Finally, Daniel is awoken from his long sleep by two young boys who stumble on the chamber while playing inside the warehouse. Upon waking, he is horrified to discover that it is not, as he had thought, 1940, but 1992. Harry, and nearly everyone else he once knew, are long dead. The Army have never heard of him, and when he tries to convince them of the truth of his experiences, they dismiss him as a lunatic. Eventually he befriends Nat, one of the two boys who opened the chamber, and his divorced mother Claire.
There are, of course, a number of plot holes in the film. It seems highly unlikely that only Finley would have known about so major a scientific experiment and that after his death everyone else would simply have forgotten about it. It seems equally unlikely that after being forgotten and abandoned the chamber would have continued to function so perfectly that Daniel could have survived inside for over fifty years. Yet these plot holes do not really matter precisely because the film is not intended to be scientifically plausible. Any film which attributes to the scientists of the 1930s the ability to perform technological feats which would still be beyond our capabilities today is obviously not aiming at realism.
The film could have been made as a satire revolving around the differences between the world of the thirties and that of the nineties, with lots of comic misunderstandings based upon the cultural differences between the two eras. It could also have been made as a serious piece of science-fiction, but in fact it is more a fantasy. (There are some similarities with "Somewhere in Time", although in that film the hero travels back in time, not forward). There are certain parallels drawn between the world of the thirties and that of the nineties, generally to the detriment of the latter. Claire is attracted to Daniel because his old-fashioned values make him seem much more gentlemanly and chivalrous than the men of her own era. Mel Gibson is good at bringing out this side of Daniel's character.
Just when the film seems to be developing into a romantic comedy which will end with Daniel and Claire falling for one another, and then changes direction with the sudden revelation that Helen did not die in 1939 but is still alive. This sudden shift of emphasis struck me as being the film's greatest weakness; the romantic ending is well done, but is seemed like something added on from a different film. I would not rate "Forever Young" as highly as "Somewhere in Time"; it lacks that film's visual beauty and, except at the very end, its dreamlike romantic atmosphere. Also, Jamie Lee Curtis is not as engaging a heroine as Jane Seymour. Gibson, however, makes a charismatic hero, and overall the film is a watchable romantic fantasy. 6/10
Finally, Daniel is awoken from his long sleep by two young boys who stumble on the chamber while playing inside the warehouse. Upon waking, he is horrified to discover that it is not, as he had thought, 1940, but 1992. Harry, and nearly everyone else he once knew, are long dead. The Army have never heard of him, and when he tries to convince them of the truth of his experiences, they dismiss him as a lunatic. Eventually he befriends Nat, one of the two boys who opened the chamber, and his divorced mother Claire.
There are, of course, a number of plot holes in the film. It seems highly unlikely that only Finley would have known about so major a scientific experiment and that after his death everyone else would simply have forgotten about it. It seems equally unlikely that after being forgotten and abandoned the chamber would have continued to function so perfectly that Daniel could have survived inside for over fifty years. Yet these plot holes do not really matter precisely because the film is not intended to be scientifically plausible. Any film which attributes to the scientists of the 1930s the ability to perform technological feats which would still be beyond our capabilities today is obviously not aiming at realism.
The film could have been made as a satire revolving around the differences between the world of the thirties and that of the nineties, with lots of comic misunderstandings based upon the cultural differences between the two eras. It could also have been made as a serious piece of science-fiction, but in fact it is more a fantasy. (There are some similarities with "Somewhere in Time", although in that film the hero travels back in time, not forward). There are certain parallels drawn between the world of the thirties and that of the nineties, generally to the detriment of the latter. Claire is attracted to Daniel because his old-fashioned values make him seem much more gentlemanly and chivalrous than the men of her own era. Mel Gibson is good at bringing out this side of Daniel's character.
Just when the film seems to be developing into a romantic comedy which will end with Daniel and Claire falling for one another, and then changes direction with the sudden revelation that Helen did not die in 1939 but is still alive. This sudden shift of emphasis struck me as being the film's greatest weakness; the romantic ending is well done, but is seemed like something added on from a different film. I would not rate "Forever Young" as highly as "Somewhere in Time"; it lacks that film's visual beauty and, except at the very end, its dreamlike romantic atmosphere. Also, Jamie Lee Curtis is not as engaging a heroine as Jane Seymour. Gibson, however, makes a charismatic hero, and overall the film is a watchable romantic fantasy. 6/10