My spy EYE SPY has just come into being. He had been a mole working his way into the very fabric of the system. Weaving his web of contacts and informants, moving and shaking his way to the forefront. Let me tell you, I expect great scoops from EYE SPY, he's a man on the inside with a face or two. He got to see WHAT DREAMS MAY COME. I can say this about his review, the material is dark and disturbing... that's kinda what it is supposed to be. This is just the first review and there are many many SPOILERS. This is a very VERY incomplete film, with some 200 visual effects shots left to be completed. I don't know about you, but I love my films dark Dark DARK at times, and Richard Matheson well... ya know Chris Reeve did.. ummm ... buy it laying on that bed of his thinking of Ms. Seymour.. And umm Heston... well, ya know... he ummmm... bought it too in his Matheson film. By the way if this leads you to believe that Robin Williams will die in WHAT DREAMS MAY COME, well that ain't really a spoiler cause everyone in the movie is dead. It takes place in the afterlife. However, there are many twists and turns, so you may want to avoid this review. As for me, I read it, but then I read the script, seen dailies and well... I'm not gonna say what else I've seen....
Several days ago I spyed with my little eye a test screening of WHAT DREAMS MAY COME starring Robin Williams, Annabella Sciorra and Cuba Gooding jr. I was especially excited to see the film since I had read Ron Bass' touching script about a year earlier and couldn't wait to see how the SFX would be accomplished.
DREAMS is the story of CHRISTIE,Robin Williams, whose children were killed in a car accident several years ago. Following their deaths, his wife, Sciorra, had a nervous breakdown and was committed. Christie came near the point of divorcing her but their love for each other brought her back from the brink of insanity. Feeling warm and fuzzy yet?
Cut to a year later when Christie is driving home and he too falls victim to highwayicide. (*This car crash sequence is one of the best I've ever seen. John Landis should've taken some pointers for Blues Brothers 2000 - what were he and Aykroyd thinking????)
Christie is visited by an angel of sorts, Gooding, and watches his funeral and his wife's subsequent plummet into despair. Realizing his presence is hurting her - she con subconsciously feel him - he and Gooding go to heaven. Apparantly, the rules of heaven are created in our imagination - every man creates his own world in which to live. A art lover, Christie's world is that of a painting his wife had just given him for an anniversary.
The story continues on as Christie is reunited with his children, his old dog and his mentor. You know it can't be heaven without Max Von Sydow somewhere about -- in a typically rich performance that's one of the few lights in this dark, debilitating drama that left me aching for a Happy Meal from the very depths of my soul.
When the film began, the audience was greeted by a cheery, bouncy Polygram exec who stoked our ardor by telling us that we were the first audience to witness this "very special film." When the lights came up after the laughable ending scenes, the exec's cheerful demeanor had skidded into something more closely resembling a Wall Street jumper. I have to say, I truly felt for the man.
I will say, in limited defence of the filmmakers, that this was the film's first test-screening, it was taken from video - presumably shot directly off the Avid screen, and it was missing some 200+ special effects. That would be fine if the story itself weren't so debilitatingly dark and depressing from the first minute to the last. Williams seems to sense this and improvs several jokes here and there, but they're not enough. Character-wise, we are never allowed to connect with any of the characters before the story begins so when every bad thing that could possibly happen to them happens, I found myeself more concerned with planning the fastest route to Mayor McCheese than I did the people on-screen.
Williams performace is touching and accessible but is smothered under the weight of this tuna. Sciorra is never given a chance and Gooding is so desperately trying to sensitive and ethereal that I wondered if he thought he was still on-stage at the Shrine thanking, thanking, thanking the world for his Oscar.
As much as I wanted this film to succeed; as much as I rooted for the bouncy Polygram exec, my light-speed trip to the Golden Arches left me much more satisfied than What Dreams May Come.
Eye-Spy .
