Product Description

A HANDSOME 1930S TEST PILOT GOES TO EXTRAORDINARY LENGTHS TO KEEP LOVE ALIVE. INCLUDES FILMOGRAPHIES AND NOTES.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5076 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 1997-07-30
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English, Spanish
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 102 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
A surprise sleeper hit when released in 1992, this romantic fantasy works as a comedic adventure and a gentle tearjerker thanks to Mel Gibson's appealing performance. He plays Daniel, a daring test pilot who is deeply distraught by the apparent death of his girlfriend, Helen, in 1939. Feeling little reason to live, he volunteers for a pioneering cryogenics experiment and is thawed out 50 years later by two young boys. They bring the confused pilot home to Nat's single mom, Claire (Jamie Lee Curtis). There's a hint of romance, but Daniel desperately needs to know if Helen really died in 1939, and he discovers that love has a way of surviving a half-century leap in time. The premise is hokey and certain plot details are conveniently ignored, but Gibson, Curtis, and Elijah Wood (as Nat) hold it together with irresistible charm and just the right balance of fantasy and drama. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

A Wonderful Film
C'mon! Admit it! You love sappy love stories. Especially with a sci-fi twist. Yes, this is cute and harmless, and a real tear jerker. But you know you are gonna love it even more when you see it done by Mel Gibson. Jamie Lee Curtis and Elija Wood also do a great job. The main thing here is that the characters make the story believeable and enjoyable.

DEFROSTING MEL
One has to give superstar Mel Gibson a lot of credit. Over his prolific career, Gibson has taken many risks in the roles he's chosen, and this romantic fantasy is just one of them. FOREVER YOUNG opens in 1939, where daredevil test pilot Gibson finds himself involved with a scientist who is perfecting a cryogenics chamber. He's also madly in love with the lovely Helen (Isabel Glasser), and wants to marry her. Alas and alack, before he can pop the question, Helen is struck down by a truck and goes into a coma. As the months go by, Gibson clings to hopes she'll recover but as his scientist friend (George Wendt) states, doctors give her little hope. When Mel feels he can't watch Helen die, he volunteers to be the first human volunteer for the cryogenics project, asking Wendt to freeze him for a year so he can avoid the inevitable. Next thing you know, it's 1992, and we meet single mom Jamie Lee Curtis (quite good as always) and her 10 year old son (Elijah Wood, simply charming, showing us what his future would be years later). While playing in an abandoned military warehouse, Wood and his buddy stumble upon the cyrogenics chamber and accidentally release Gibson. How he got caught in this chamber for 53 years forms the core of the story and Gibson desperately searches for some knowledge of Wendt's whereabouts.
The movie is unabashedly romantic but Gibson is so good and the story takes hold of you and you watch with amusement as Gibson discovers the technologies of a new world and his scenes with young Wood are marvelous. A rather contrived ending spoils the overall effect but FOREVER YOUNG is nonetheless a very engaging film.

Yes, it is on widescreen
The widescreen version of Forever Young was released on LASER DISC. And it is awesome! I have it in my collection. Someone in their infinite wisdom probably decided it wasn't worth it to put that version on DVD. They were so wrong.