This year I pledged to fill in all my Steven Spielberg blind spots, reviewing them as I go. I’ve been making reasonable progress with the watching, but customarily slacking when it comes to the actual reviewing, partly because I got side-tracked with the Twin Peaks of it all. So far I’ve watched Always, Hook and Amistad, (along with the already-reviewed Sugarland Express and Empire of the Sun) none of which I feel overly compelled to watch again anytime soon, so these next few reviews will likely be a little lighter than usual, hope that’s OK. I still have Munich and Catch Me If You Can to go, so hopefully look out for them soon!

In Always, Richard Dreyfuss plays Pete, a fire-flyer who douses fires from his airplane. He has a long-standing, tumultuous relationship with Dorinda (Holly Hunter), who he finally agrees to settle down with right before he fulfils the time-honoured cliché of not returning from his pre-retirement mission. In the afterlife, Pete learns from Hap (Audrey Hepburn) that he can subtly guide and influence the living, and the universe seems to be pointing him in the direction of helping new pilot Ted (Brad Johnson) make his way in the world.

This is an odd movie that feels very much like a passion project Spielberg made more for himself than anyone else, remaking a childhood favourite of his, A Guy Named Joe. Sometimes these persistent urges to remake classics can lead to masterpieces that, in my opinion, outshine the originals, such as Peter Jackson’s seminal King Kong (2005), and other times you get films like this that don’t wholly hang together and make you yearn for the far more interesting supporting characters who are frankly not in this film anywhere near enough (John Goodman, Keith David, Roberts Blossom, Marg Helgenberger). I really thought (and hoped) that Goodman’s character was going to become the replacement love interest for Hunter, but instead we get lumbered with the charisma chasm of Brad Johnson, who doesn’t have a lot to work with but does absolutely nothing with it.

As much as Spielberg loved using Dreyfuss as a lead, I’ve never really enjoyed him as an actor, and find he always comes off as irritating (reportedly this happened to a lot of people he worked with as well). Whilst Pete’s paranormal hijinks are occasionally fun – making Goodman smear his own face with grease – his constant stalking from beyond the grave can’t help but come off as creepy throughout. The fire-fighting sequences jar tonally with the rest of the film, and I understand why this is one of the least-discussed of Spielberg’s filmography.

Choose Life 5/10