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What Dreams May Come

What Dreams May Come

List Price: $9.99
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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: In the top ten for worst films of all time
Review: The story is pathetic, underlying philosophy/theology puerile, contradictory, and inane, the acting syrupy, dialogue insufferably twee, and the "amazing visual effects" have all the integrity of a Thomas Kinecade piece. Heaven is an Escher painting, complete with people flying about. Hell consists of naked, writhing bodies incessantly moaning, and a lot of dust.

The film also keeps making unintentional comments - for example, we discover that the two white upper-middle kids voluntarily chose minority identities in the afterlife and that their father does not question this decision for a moment. It would have been amusing if they had swapped genders as well as racial identities.

The only half way decent moment is when he goes to hell and steps on lots of heads in his search for his wife.

But the best moment in the film is actually the alternate ending (the DVD has it). We laughed so hard, we hurt ourselves.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Intellectually Erotic Artistic Fantasy
Review: A movie is rarely made with such intense creativity. The artistic quality is completely unique, stunning and makes this visually exciting.

Two souls meet and are soul mates beyond reality. Sunlit beauty entices you into the story. Emotional elements take hold of your heart and capture your attention in a way only one other movie has. This is a modern version of Somewhere in Time, with a more inventive twist. Only that movie made me feel the same way. What Dreams May Come is far more creative and captures the emotions of life with such truth. Yet, seems to have a similar theme.

When Chris Nielsen and Annie meet on a lake, they never imagine they will go to hell and back, in life and in death. This is an intellectual look at how heaven and hell might be and is worth watching for those aspects alone. This is a journey into Chris' mind in life and in death. Robin Williams (Chris) and Annabella Sciorra's (Annie) acting is so wonderful. I kept thinking it is a sign of a good actor when they can play so many parts in one movie. Annabella's character goes from goddess to suicidal mother and then tortured soul. Robin's character goes from calm to courageous.

Chris and Annie go through more than the normal human will ever be required to endure. When Chris dies and finds out his wife has committed suicide, he vows to find her tortured soul and bring her back to the heaven he has created for himself in his mind. He says something so profound about life and explains how he misses, books, naps and kisses. It will make you value life more.

This is a quest for everlasting love and happiness in the afterlife. While I don't believe in reincarnation, that aspect plays a role in the story which is amusing. The originality in this movie is beyond creative. Having Chris end up in a heaven made of paint when he loves paintings was so wonderful! The flying creatures were so incredible and the fact that you could be anyone you wanted to be, freeing.

A movie that will deepen your belief in a heaven and may even cause you to seek God and discover your soul. The aspects of respect, loyalty, courage, family, trust, love, belief in someone and endless devotion play out beautifully in the characters lives.

This is a movie I will watch again and again and am so pleased I purchased it. Life can take us in its teeth and shake us around. It is in the next life where we will gain our reward or punishment.

"I didn't get to say goodbye." was what Chris said in this movie and that hit me hard because I just lost my grandmother and didn't get to say goodbye to her. Realizing that she is perhaps in the heaven of her dreams, maybe cooking in a kitchen of her imagination with my grandfather, maybe riding around in my grandfather's boat in an ocean of his imagination made me feel more at peace with my loss.

A deeply spiritual and intellectual story about issues we all care about! Don't miss it, it is spectacular and magical.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: An interesting experiment...
Review: This movie is interesting because it tries to approach the idea of human mortality from an all-encompassing philosophical system by drawing on several different philsophical and theological ideas simultaneously so that no one religion or belief system is emphasized moreso than the other. By using this approach, the movie attempts to examine and communicate the raw truths of life and death. The film also communicates to its audience in raw emotion through the use of archetypical characters with often melodramatic performances that succeed even though they shouldn't. The images of Hell are obviously inspired by Dante's "Inferno". Though the Hell visuals are impressive, they by no means capture the hopelessness and despair of Hell. What's most impressive is the director's attempt at visually capturing on film an idea of Heaven. The attempt alone deserves merit and this is where the film's visuals succeed the most. On DVD, the colors are rich and bright and serve as a good reference disc to check to see if your TV is calibrated properly. There are generous extras and the audio mix is about average. After several repeated viewings, I have come to like this film more and more.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Dreamlike
Review: This movie really makes you gasp for breath during some moments. It's at the same time an stunning adventure thrue our mind as it's a really sad and romantic drama. Both Robin Williams and Cuba Gooding Jr. makes a teriffic team along with beutiful woman playing the wife. So just go get it.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Really Dreamy !
Review: Firstly, it deserved it's Academy award for Visual Effects . The painted style of Robin William's "heaven" is breath-taking. You begin to appreciate this scene more after you go through the "extras" on the DVD where the SFX people explain the efforts that had gone into it.You marvel at the SFX of the movie but I wonder if one would still be amazed considering the glut of plotless SFX movies in these times. The overall picture quality of the DVD is good and the dolby digital 5.1 sound is excellent with good surround effects !

Coming to the movie, it starts of with a breathtaking scene of Switzerland (the scene was actually shot in Montana) with it's lush surroundings and the crystal clear water with the breathtaking mountains in the backdrop. You can almost smell the flowers and one is inclined to take a deep-breath on experiencing the opening scene.

The movie then starts to crawl for the next 20 minutes or so. I guess the director was probably trying to build up the characters and their interactions but nonetheless, it crawls a bit. Once that's over the tempo starts to build up !

And yea ... the alternate ending if of lessor audio/video quality but is pretty nice nonetheless. I like the part in which Cuba Gooding says "What do you mean by 'I' ? Is it your arm, your leg ... we are IN a house but we are NOT the house..." and implies that when we are finished with a house we move on and it's the same with our body and soul. The depiction of hell is pretty gloomy and at the same time leaves us confused as to what to make of the director's interpretation and depiction of the scenes.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Glorious Epiphany
Review: My husband and I rented this movie thinking it would be all right, but probably not wonderful. A few hours later, we were both sobbing in each others' arms, having gone through one of the most amazing journeys on film I've ever experienced. If you've ever had a soul mate, this movie is something you must see. If you are a thinking person, this will be a breath of air in a creatively stifled world. If you would prefer to watch another re-run of "Married With Children" or you preferred Robin Williams when he did that good ol' "Mork and Mindy" (and you don't quite get that weird art stuff he's doing) then don't even think about watching this movie, because you don't deserve it. It is a jewel.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: My all-time favorite!!!
Review: A story about soul mates going beyond life to find eachother. Captivating and inspiring, Robin Williams' best film yet.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Evocative
Review: Other reviewers who have written about the need for strong emotional grounding in order to watch this film are right. I first saw this movie a few months after the death of my closest sibling when my emotional nerves were still very raw. However, I experienced more joy in watching it than angst. While I shed tears of sadness, there were also tears of joy for remembered times. Perhaps it was the surreal and imaginative landscapes through which the actors moved that assuaged my adult sadness and feelings of loss with the joyous creativity of a child in the process of finger painting. The actors portrayals did bring me pain, but it is a pain we all will experience whether it be a cherished friend, pet, or family member. Revel in the welter of emotions that play with your heart strings during this movie. They confirm that you indeed are alive.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Strange, Wonderful, and Tragic Romance
Review: The visuals in this movie are truly stunning, with surrealistic images of Heaven and Hell that Salvador Dali would have loved. The acting is also superb, with Robin Williams at his serious-best (the man's range is amazing at times). The movie takes on the question of defining good and evil and sin, and puts it into the spotlight.

Although there is a lot of pain and sadness in this movie, the characters are engaging enough that the viewer shares their torturous journey. I watched this movie once, and I'm glad I saw it, but I immediately passed it on to someone else, whom I warned about the pain portrayed so well in the movie. I strongly recommend this movie to those who are not faint of heart, but I also expect that many people will react as I did, and not want to see this movie twice.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Worth viewing for "Hell"...
Review: I wasn't really looking forward to seeing it, and I'm not sure why. I suppose the trailers just didn't really appeal to me. I got that sick sort of feeling one gets after eating too much candy. I guess I was afraid that I might gag if the sentimentality was overdone.

Robin Williams was wonderful, as usual, and I've always loved Annabella Sciorra since I saw her in "True Love"(?). But parts of the movie seemed to drag on and on and on.

I suppose I would recommend it for two things: the special effects, which were a sight to behold, and the interpretation of hell (wasn't that impressed with the interpretation of heaven -- could've been less boring, i.e., is that all there is?) Hell was vastly interesting -- if people are destined to go to hell, when they get there they find that it is not a burning lake of fire, but rather the hell they created for themselves while on earth. We, all of us, make our own hell, and are destined to wallow in it for eternity. Interesting concept.


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