Years ago, I heard a released version of David Newman's theme music for James Orr's "Mr Destiny", and was so touched and inspired by it that I (fondly) imagined the film might be noble/high quality enough to match that. So now I finally got to watch "Mr Destiny", in which the version of the music I heard never actually appears at all (even if there are certain - lesser - variations on that theme!
And that strange circumstance maybe tells one most of what one needs to know about this James Belushi-Michael Caine-Linda Hamilton (and gorgeous Courtney Cox) movie, which - from today's perspective anyway - seems mainly trite, implausible, tame, lame and neither quite funny enough, nor quite thoughtful enough. Allowances might be made for this kind of whimsical fantasy, and I did make them. But somehow "Mr Destiny" does not achieve the cohesiveness and persusasiveness needed to score even in this genre. And in the end that's a pity, because Belushi's Larry Burrows character comes over as reasonably genuine, and there are hints in here of a better movie trying to get out.
But some years have indeed passed, and quite a few films have dealt with the topic of how our lives might look if we had taken a different decision at some point. Indeed, "Back to the Future" was doing that kind of work 5 years BEFORE "Mr Destiny", "Peggy Sue Got Married" four years before - and to far better effect.
To be charitable, "Mr Destiny" is mainly harmless, and does have a certain "feelgood" factor about it, and is occasionally funny. I watched it through, and was adequately satisified, so it can be done. But...
As a general rule, we would now need some special justifications to go back and watch any 1990 movie, and I'm afraid I'm not really able to make a case for giving an hour and a half to this one ... all the more so as even the music was not the exquisite stuff I had hoped for!
And that strange circumstance maybe tells one most of what one needs to know about this James Belushi-Michael Caine-Linda Hamilton (and gorgeous Courtney Cox) movie, which - from today's perspective anyway - seems mainly trite, implausible, tame, lame and neither quite funny enough, nor quite thoughtful enough. Allowances might be made for this kind of whimsical fantasy, and I did make them. But somehow "Mr Destiny" does not achieve the cohesiveness and persusasiveness needed to score even in this genre. And in the end that's a pity, because Belushi's Larry Burrows character comes over as reasonably genuine, and there are hints in here of a better movie trying to get out.
But some years have indeed passed, and quite a few films have dealt with the topic of how our lives might look if we had taken a different decision at some point. Indeed, "Back to the Future" was doing that kind of work 5 years BEFORE "Mr Destiny", "Peggy Sue Got Married" four years before - and to far better effect.
To be charitable, "Mr Destiny" is mainly harmless, and does have a certain "feelgood" factor about it, and is occasionally funny. I watched it through, and was adequately satisified, so it can be done. But...
As a general rule, we would now need some special justifications to go back and watch any 1990 movie, and I'm afraid I'm not really able to make a case for giving an hour and a half to this one ... all the more so as even the music was not the exquisite stuff I had hoped for!