Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that there are a few scattered swear words in this generally gentle drama about a very average, nice American guy endowed with mental superpowers. Overall this movie is more a romantic tearjerker than the science-fiction action/mind-blower some fans -- restless kids especially -- might expect. There is an upsetting death of a main character (off screen).
Families can talk about whether having superior intellect can be a gift or a curse. What other examples do you see in the news or on your favorite TV shows of exceptionally smart people? Do you think the reactions of characters in this movie -- including fear, resentment, and near-religious mania -- are realistic? Do you think George is correct in wishing that sudden genius struck someone else, especially someone who wasn't blue collar?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Charles Cassady, Jr.
A classroom reading-assignment classic is Flowers for Algernon, in which a slow-witted man has his brainpower artificially augmented. In both the book, its movie adaptation Charly, and a later, more sci-fi quasi-imitation The Lawnmower Man (and a couple of Star Trek episodes), the results aren't good. Becoming exponentially more intelligent only makes the lead character ultimately unhappy -- or a wrathful CGI madman-monster. PHENOMENON is a mildly fantastic drama with a more positive message: Even if such a mental miracle could occur, brilliance doesn't make you abandon simple human decency.
George Malley (John Travolta) is a regular-guy mechanic and bachelor farmer in a small town, just celebrating his 37th birthday with drinking buddies and feeling that his life has passed him by. Standing alone under the night sky, he's knocked down by a bright light. Soon he finds he can read dozens of books in one evening, memorize endless facts and figures, invent solar and alternative-energy devices, think up amazing new fertilizers and crop rotations, and actually forecast earthquakes. He can also teach himself new languages in just hours, and exhibits telekinesis.
When George successfully predicts an earthquake and cracks a secret military code used on a nearby base, the government and scientists take an interest in him, too. But all he wants to do with his newfound super-genius is share his inventions, help the community with the agriculture techniques, and maybe arrange some lonely friends of his to make love connections. On that theme, even with his incredible mental mojo, George seems to have his hardest challenge impressing Lace (Kyra Sedgwick), a single mom he's got a crush on.
There are times when Phenomenon teases you that it's going to go deeper into science-fiction territory. Are UFOs involved? How about future time-travelers making people smart? Will George use his spooky talents to fight bad guys for the CIA? Will he join a mutant superhero team? Instead, the script (which is on the long side) keeps things focused on the small-town society and down-home values -- and the contrast with the cosmopolitan "experts" from outside, who just see George as a test-tube subject. If anyone's an "alien," they are, in the sentimentalized view of village life.
The crucial question is Will George's old friends shun him because of his awesome brain power? Or will they accept what he says? There turns out to be a fairly earthbound reason (but still a tall tale, medically speaking) to explain George's amazing transformation, and it ends the movie on a heart-tugging note. It's a tearjerker, but an optimistic one, and Travolta is very effective, atypically cast as Joe Average.
For another drama, this time about a kid facing consequences of being born a genius, look for Little Man Tate.
Rate It!
| Content | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CS | adults | kids | ||
Sexual ContentA mild suggestion that George and his girlfriend have slept together. |
 |
|||
ViolenceAn earthquake, and some thrown glasses in a bar argument. |
|
|||
LanguageSome. "S--t," "hell" a few times, "goddamn," and "freakin.'" |
 |
|||
Message |
|
|||
Social BehaviorGeorge argues the merits of basic decency and just being a real nice guy, even with his I.Q. soaring. His close down-home buddies are similarly depicted in rosy, salt-of-the-earth terms, though some of them grow to resent and fear George's transformation. Doctors and scholars are depicted as arrogant and untrustworthy. |
 |
|||
Commercialism |
 |
|||
Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoSocial drinking, beers in the bar, talk of drunkeness (it comes across as a hallmark of being a "regular guy"). A character is slipped a sleeping drug unknowingly. |
 |
|||
