Always is a true anomaly in Steven Spielberg’s filmography. Even from his weaker films like War of the Worlds I’ve gotten the sense he prides himself on the stories he chooses to tell so this one having almost nothing going for it was a real shock especially with how much the concept intrigued me. The story and script is most successful in its comedic elements, John Goodman’s physical comedy was truly a high point of the movie and a few other moments like the John Wayne impressions put a smile on my face. That story does unfortunately reveal itself to be worse and worse as time goes on, the further I got into this movie the less I cared for the characters which certainly isn’t a good sign and with the ending being a nothing burger I’m left feeling completely empty as far as story impact goes. As far as the overall movie’s success goes it’s definitely the technical work that stands out, this is an already well-established Spielberg so the shot composition and lighting that I love about his style so much is very present here and almost gives the movie a Top Gun feel in that regard and the John Williams score, although not near his best work, does the job as well as you’d expect from one of cinema’s greatest composers. I have to get to the acting because one of the biggest reasons I actually watched it was for Audrey Hepburn’s last role and I just have to criticize Spielberg for his criminal underuse of the legend, she had like 3 scenes and even though I loved seeing her in those I was expecting a lot more considering she got fourth billing here and it certainly couldn’t have hurt the story to incorporate her more. Outside of that Dreyfuss and Hunter were pretty good, the latter was definitely my preferred as Dreyfuss wasn’t really doing it for me in the first half but I came around to his performance as the runtime went on. Out of the cast it’s clearly Brad Johnson that sticks out in a bad way, if I had to guess I’d say Spielberg ran the casting on his character for just two criteria, those being an acceptable John Wayne impression and the visual aesthetic of a pilot, and while he fits those requirements Johnson didn’t bring anything to the table acting wise and was emotionally stiff as a love interest for Hunter. That’s where I run dry on Always, I wouldn’t recommend it unless you really love Spielberg and even then it doesn’t give any insight to the director that you couldn’t and wouldn’t find in much better movies, yet despite all that this runtime went by pretty quick for me and I mustered some enjoyable moments from this mostly rough outing.
Always is a true anomaly in Steven Spielberg’s filmography. Even from his weaker films like War of the Worlds I’ve gotten the sense he prides himself on the stories he chooses to tell so this one having almost nothing going for it was a real shock especially with how much the concept intrigued me. The story and script is most successful in its comedic elements, John Goodman’s physical comedy was truly a high point of the movie and a few other moments like the John Wayne impressions put a smile on my face. That story does unfortunately reveal itself to be worse and worse as time goes on, the further I got into this movie the less I cared for the characters which certainly isn’t a good sign and with the ending being a nothing burger I’m left feeling completely empty as far as story impact goes. As far as the overall movie’s success goes it’s definitely the technical work that stands out, this is an already well-established Spielberg so the shot composition and lighting that I love about his style so much is very present here and almost gives the movie a Top Gun feel in that regard and the John Williams score, although not near his best work, does the job as well as you’d expect from one of cinema’s greatest composers. I have to get to the acting because one of the biggest reasons I actually watched it was for Audrey Hepburn’s last role and I just have to criticize Spielberg for his criminal underuse of the legend, she had like 3 scenes and even though I loved seeing her in those I was expecting a lot more considering she got fourth billing here and it certainly couldn’t have hurt the story to incorporate her more. Outside of that Dreyfuss and Hunter were pretty good, the latter was definitely my preferred as Dreyfuss wasn’t really doing it for me in the first half but I came around to his performance as the runtime went on. Out of the cast it’s clearly Brad Johnson that sticks out in a bad way, if I had to guess I’d say Spielberg ran the casting on his character for just two criteria, those being an acceptable John Wayne impression and the visual aesthetic of a pilot, and while he fits those requirements Johnson didn’t bring anything to the table acting wise and was emotionally stiff as a love interest for Hunter. That’s where I run dry on Always, I wouldn’t recommend it unless you really love Spielberg and even then it doesn’t give any insight to the director that you couldn’t and wouldn’t find in much better movies, yet despite all that this runtime went by pretty quick for me and I mustered some enjoyable moments from this mostly rough outing.
