What Dreams May Come (1998)

(In theaters, October 1998) This film will undoubtedly appeal to some. Sugar-sweet moralistic fantasies about the possibility of an afterlife always reach a certain crowd (already satisfied in 1998 with the angel romance City Of Angels) and I suspect that this is where this movie will make most of its money. Me? As a coldly atheistic cynic, I appreciated the clever sights, but thought that it was a pretty good Outer Limits episode bloated to two hours and weighted down by incoherent dialogue and bargain-bin philosophy. Robin Williams is okay, as are Cuba Gooding Jr and Rosalind Chao. Not repulsively bad, or even displeasing, but not really one of the shining movies of the year; even taking “afterlife” movies as a category, Defending Your Life was much better.