FOREVER YOUNG

   Film (1992). Warner Bros. Exec prods Edward S. Feldman and Jeffrey Abrams, prod Bruce Davey, dir Steve Miner, starring Mel Gibson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Elijah Wood, Isabel Glasser and George Wendt. Screenplay Abrams. 101 mins. Colour.

   In 1939, when his girl friend (Glasser) lapses into apparently terminal coma after being hit by a car, grief-stricken test pilot McCormick (Gibson) volunteers for a one-year experiment in CRYONICS conducted, conveniently, by his best friend (Wendt). The friend dies, and the secret experiment sits unnoticed in a military warehouse until 1992, when two small boys accidentally open the cryonic chamber, and McCormick revives, apparently still a sexy youngish man. He copes well with life 53 years on, and while being pursued by federal agents he forms a relationship with a feisty but somewhat depressed nurse (Curtis). Soon, however, it becomes clear that McCormick is ageing very rapidly. Fortunately he has previously taught the nurse's small son (Wood) to flyold bombers, since he becomes too old to operate the one he steals to elude the feds. The boy lands them safely at the house of his one-time girl friend, who, it transpires, has recovered from her coma but is now aged around eighty. The two wrinkled old persons embrace, in a culminating scene that elicits embarrassment rather than the intended tears. A romantic weepie, a thriller, a comedy, a boys' adventure film: the mix is ill judged. The sf elements are among the better things, especially the reversal of the usual stereotype, where McCormick is able, quite plausibly, to adjust rapidly to a much changed world.

   PN