It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Bland and derivative. Rehash of dated story line of poor man gets god like powers. There's a 1920's film from Europe practically the same story. This version is over the top pseudo religious crap. The sound of one had clapping type of nonsense that is meant to sound profound.Just go watch toy story it has a deeper moral message.

I had never seen this movie and always thought it was disappointing. Well, i was horribly wrong! Great acting performance by John Travolta. He plays the character of George Malley with great depth. He really IS George Malley and you will see a completely different John Travolta. The environment and scenery in Pasadena California of the movie fits the story perfectly. Also Forest Whitaker plays his character very well. Robert Duval completes the story as the father figure. The story-line is really inspiring and shows you that love conquers all. The relation between George and Lace is beautiful and shows two people in love with each other despite all troubles of the everyday life. Enjoyed this movie and the story. I really think this one of his (John Travolta) best movies.

Many people seem to feel this is a movie about John Travolta's philosophical belief system, Scientology or Dianetics or whatever it is, but, if so, it all got past me because I don't know what either of them is.To me, it seemed like a contrived, commercially oriented, and successful feel-good story about an ordinary auto mechanic in a small California town who sees a flash of light one night, turns into a paranormal wizard, and then dies happy in the arms of the true love he's been courting but who has been keeping him at arms' length.I kept trying to identify its sources, aside from "The Twilight Zone," which we can take for granted -- especially the episode called "Mr. Dingle, The Strong." Let's see. The general idea is lifted from "Field of Dreams," only this is episodic instead of linear and lacks the happy climactic bonding of son and deceased father. I mean, each of the protagonists has a weird experience alone in a farming community, after which he becomes obsessed and hypomanic, and the local Sons of the Soil regard him as nuts. Then, in the odd ball villagers, there is a touch of "Northern Exposure" and "Rocket Gibraltar," the film to which the television series owes a good deal. The structure runs parallel to "Charlie." I think maybe the jumbo but pathetic monster of Frankenstein may be stretching things too far.Travolta is convincing enough as the cheerful, modest, perceptive brain tumor victim. I liked Kyra Sedgewick because she fits the role of the single mother with two children who wants to keep her life uncomplicated out here in the wilderness of buff hills and bunch grass. Forest Whitaker is fine as the recluse -- the only black guy in town as far as we can tell -- who seems to be Travolta's sole friend in this village. Robert Duvall's part is relatively small but he lends it more energy than he has in any of his other recent films.The FBI, academia, and famous brain surgeons provide the villains. "The most famous brain surgeon in the world" is Richard Kiley who tries to persuade Travolta to let him operate on his brain while it's still working, though it may not even prolong his life, let alone save it. Travolta could open new doors. Travolta replies to this importuning with: "You don't get it, do you? You have one hand on technology and one hand on science and you have nothing left for the human spirit." I'm on the side of Richard Kiley. Let them go ahead and peel open my head. The worst (or the best) that could happen is that you expire painlessly while in deep anesthesia. The alternative, which Travolta chooses, is to die at Kyra Sedgewick's farmhouse with its vista of live oaks under blazing blue skies. Yet, death from an astrocytoma is a horrible death. You don't die peacefully. You vomit, act irrationally, lose your wits, wind up immobilized, and suffer excruciating pain. The ending is a fantasy.It struck me as a tale aimed at the heart rather than the head, as Woody Allen once put it. There are pop songs about love and self actualization played over long scenes of smooching and driving around in a beat-up old pick up truck. It was all a bit much.

It was right about at this time in John Travolta's career that he won the battle...the battle of convincing me that he was an actor of note. I grew up with Travolta on "Welcome Back Kotter", and I was not impressed. A number of movies went by, and I saw a few...and became cautiously optimistic that maybe he was at least an "okay" actor. But with a few films right around 1996, including this one, he won me over. No, he's no Laurence Olivier, but he's a very pleasant and often very interesting actor. This may be his best role, although you don't realize it until well into the movie when he begins to have a sort of breakdown, and you see the transformation of the character he plays.The story is a good one...a man she some flashes of light in the sky and suddenly becomes brilliant, learns things remarkably fast, develops complex and original ideas, etc. Of course, the government gets involved, and eventually -- when they realize he will soon die -- they want to do open brain surgery to learn as much as they can. Will they succeed? Meanwhile, throughout the film he is trying to win the heart of Kyra Sedgwick...who's a hold out of sorts...the rest of the town loves him...until his weirdness begins to freak them out.Personally, I'm not a fan of Kyra Sedgwick, and I wouldn't have cast her in this role...although she does "okay". Similarly, I wouldn't have chosen Forest Whitaker as the role of best friend. Robert Duvall is another actor I never cared for...but, it has been re-looking at roles like this that have led to me reconsidering the quality of his acting, and I have to admit I was wrong...he was and is a terrific actor, and demonstrates that again here. It was nice to see Richard Kiley as the brain specialist here, not that his character is one you are apt to like. Bruce Young seemed an odd choice as an FBI agent.The film doesn't have a happy ending, but it's just about the only ending that it could have. Highly recommended, at least once.