Phenomenon Review

Wish you had super-intelligence and telekinesis? Well, John Travolta does in the 1996 movie Phenomenon and it doesn’t nearly do justice to the mind-bending riveting adventure you could have had in this simply subpar film directed by Jon Turteltaub. The premise of the film is John Travolta as George Malley, a popular mechanic, who on his birthday sees a bright light in the sky and gains super-intelligence and telekinesis. After that, his life changes as his friends view him differently and the way he views life becomes different as he sees more value in it and has a greater thirst to learn than he ever did before. Perhaps the movie tries too hard to be intellectual when it really doesn’t even know what it is in the first place, to begin with. In any regard, the picture does have entertaining aspects to be enjoyed throughout the film regardless of its mountain of flaws in the script.

John Travolta effectively brings to life the character of a popular mechanic in a small town with ease bringing a great likeability and sense of everyman charm to his character. When his character receives his powers in the movie it is interesting to see him explore his intellectual side and look at things in life differently but it doesn’t really matter in the end since the film is almost completely devoid of any real stakes. Robert Duvall is the strongest member of this cast next to Travolta as he plays Doc Brunder, a character who keeps his friend George grounded but also is fascinated by the world that George can explore through his newfound abilities. Duvall plays the part that he is given well, and uses the material his script gave him to great effect but it doesn’t bring to life a sense of cinematic excitement to the screen which Travolta can’t even manage to bring to this film with its lack of consistent pace and interesting characters. Speaking on that note Travolta’s character in the film has a romantic interest leading to a romantic sub-plot.

It's surely a dull experience to be lived through as the chemistry between Travolta and Lace Pennamin who plays Kyra Sedgwick is virtually non-existent and doesn’t do much to help engage the audience into the story. Kyra continues to reject Travolta’s character a number of times in the film till it feels like a forced switch by the writers is imposed forcing Kyra’s character to become interested in Travolta’s character. There are some fun moments in the film such as Brent Spiner’s fantastic cameo as a doctor trying to learn more about Travolta’s character and his abilities or scenes when he shows off his powers in front of his friends or otherwise but other than that there doesn’t seem to be any real momentum driving the story forward.

Phenomenon is a watchable film but it's not going to blow anyone away for sure. Solid performances by John Travolta and Robert Duvall bring some fun scenes and character interactions into the mix but a lack of stakes and poor execution of the plot really drags this film down. Phenomenon is a film that is OK which I am assigning a score of 6/10.