Forever Young (film)

This article is about the 1992 film. For the 1983 film, see Forever Young (1983 film).

Forever Young
movie poster for Forever Young
Directed by	Steve Miner
Produced by	Bruce Davey executives: Mel Gibson J.J. Abrams Edward S. Feldman
Written by	J.J. Abrams
Starring	Mel Gibson Jamie Lee Curtis Elijah Wood Isabel Glasser George Wendt Joe Morton
Music by	Jerry Goldsmith
Cinematography	Russell Boyd
Studio	Icon Productions
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date(s)	December 11, 1992
Running time	102 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$127,956,187

Forever Young is a 1992 film with elements of romance, drama and science fiction, directed by Steve Miner, starring Mel Gibson, Elijah Wood and Jamie Lee Curtis. The screenplay was written by J.J. Abrams from an original story, "The Rest of Daniel". The original music score is composed by Jerry Goldsmith. The film is marketed with the tagline "Time waits for no man, but true love waits forever."

Plot

In 1939, Captain Daniel McCormick (Mel Gibson) is a reckless test pilot. After a successful run in a prototype North American B-25 Mitchell, McCormick is greeted by his longtime friend, Harry Finley (George Wendt), who confides that his latest experiment, "Project B", has succeeded in doing the impossible. The machine, built by Finley and his team of scientists, is a prototype chamber for cryonic freezing. When McCormick's girlfriend, Helen (Isabel Glasser) goes into a coma from an accident and the doctors doubt she will ever recover, McCormick insists he be put in suspended animation for one year, so he will not have to watch Helen die.

Fifty-three years later, two boys playing inside an abandoned military storage warehouse stumble onto the chamber (which they initially think is an old water heater). Twisting the dials, they accidentally activate the reversal process. During the confusion, McCormick's sleeping form reflexively grabs one boy's coat. They flee in terror, and shortly after, McCormick awakens in 1992. After appropriating shorts and a shirt from a clothesline, he first approaches the military about his experiences. When they dismiss him as crazed, McCormick becomes more determined to learn what happened to Finley, Helen, and the world that has seemingly evolved overnight around him.

His search leads him to Nat Cooper (Elijah Wood), one of the two boys who opened the chamber, and owner of the aforementioned jacket. Though the boys are initially terrified, McCormick is able to calm Cooper and his friend with the truth of his story. This bond is strengthened when Nat's mother, Claire (Jamie Lee Curtis) offers McCormick a place to stay, until he can discover what to do with his search. Nonetheless, McCormick's time is running out, as his body starts to age rapidly, due to the years he spent in stasis.

When another "aging attack" practically cripples McCormick, Claire is told the amazing truth. Susan, Finley's daughter, informs him that her father died many years earlier (the government later specifies it was a warehouse fire in the early '40s, while trying to save the frozen McCormick from the chaos). Susan also gives McCormick her father's journals, hoping he can use them to reverse his own condition (but according to the journals, the project cannot reverse aging, thus explaining Daniel's own rapid aging). Before leaving, Susan gives McCormick one further revelation: Helen is alive. The government is also after McCormick, but in the end, Claire hands over the crucial information on "Project B", and no one is arrested as the government investigates what went wrong.

McCormick's final task is to find Helen in the present day. Nat stows away on board a B-25 bomber, taken from an airshow, which he helps McCormick land when another attack nearly kills him. His true age having finally caught up with him, the now-elderly McCormick asks Helen to marry him, and she accepts.

Cast

Actor	Role
Mel Gibson	Captain Daniel McCormick, USAAC
Jamie Lee Curtis	Claire Cooper
Elijah Wood	Nat Cooper
Isabel Glasser	Helen
George Wendt	Harry Finley
Joe Morton	Cameron
Eric Pierpoint	Fred
Richard Ryder	Pilot #1

A full cast and production crew list is too lengthy to include, see: IMDb profile.

B-25 Mitchell

Production

In November 1990, Warner Bros purchased the film rights to "The Rest of Daniel" for $2 million, the most ever paid for a screenplay. Ostensibly purchased as a star vehicle for Gibson, he turned down the opportunity to direct the feature.

A North American B-25J Mitchell known as "Photo Fanny" (from the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino, California) is featured prominently in the film, both as the B-25 prototype and later restored warbird that McCormick flies to his beloved.

Critical reception

Critically, Forever Young met with mixed reviews, Roger Ebert noted, "[Forever Young] is not one of the most inspired (of the time travel movies), even though it has its heart in the right place..." Box Office characterized it as "gooey sentiment and melodrama", playing on Gibson's name.

Box office

Despite the lukewarm reviews, mostly focused on the inept script, the film did well with audiences, and took in $127,956,187 worldwide. Forever Young opened to a first weekend gross of $5,609,875 and went on to gross $55,956,187 in the domestic market. It grosses approximately $72,000,000 in the foreign market. A Hollywood premiere was turned into a fund-raiser for two of Gibson's charities, the West Hollywood Alcohol and Drug Recovery Center and the Santa Monica Homeless Drop-in Center. A total of $70,000 was raised for both charities.

References

Notes

Bibliography

• Clarkson, Wensley. Mel Gibson: Man on a Mission. London: John Blake, 2004. ISBN 1-85782-537-3.
• McCarty, John. The Films of Mel Gibson. New York: Citadel, 2001. ISBN 0-80652-226-7.

External links

• Forever Young at the Internet Movie Database
• Forever Young at AllRovi
• Forever Young at Rotten Tomatoes