If you like "Field of Dreams" you ought to get a kick out of this Twilight-Zone fantasy too. They both follow a similar trajectory. Similar, in fact, to Twilight Zone's "Kick the Can" episode, in fact, from which both may be derived. The director, Ron Howard, hasn't taken any chances here in this sentimental, mildly amusing, mildly thought-provoking story, but then he rarely does.
This expedition from Antares (looking quite normal on the outside) comes to Earth to retrieve some cocoons left behind earlier when their planet was about to be turned into a monstrous prune -- something like that, anyway. It doesn't matter.
They retrieve the cocoons from the ocean floor and stash them temporarily in the swimming pool of a deserted Florida mansion. The pool is being secretly and illegally used for wading by a three old dudes from a neighboring retirement community, Wilfred Brimley, Hume Cronyn, and Don Ameche. Without anyone's seeming to realize it, the cocoons are infusing the water with some elan vital that is exponentially more powerful than Geritol and Viagra combined. The boys don't begin to actually look different but they regain, let's say, both their youthful vigor and the turgor associated with it.
Instead of sedate dances at the club to old-time Glenn-Millerish swing music, they go to discos and Ameche does a break dance, wowing the audience. Soon their wives begin enjoying a dip or two as well, and the couples wind up climbing trees and chasing each other through the mangroves.
There's a younger couple too, a girl from Antares (Tahnee Welsh) and the owner of the boat that the aliens have hired (Steve Guttenberg). They fall for each other. The problem is that underneath these plastic exteriors, the Antarens, Tahnee Welsh included, are diminutive bilaterally symmetrical beings with tiny mouths and big eyes and they glow with the blinding, eyeball-coagulating light of an arc lamp. This presents certain problems, as you can imagine, when the young man inquires of Welsh, "How do Antarens, um, express affection for one another." "Not in the way you think," she replies, and we can feel the guy's heart sink, "but we show ourselves." Well, that doesn't sound too bad, especially when Welsh begins showing herself by ridding her plastic body of its hampering outer garments. But then, alas, it gets kind of twisted because the rest of what she "shows" him resembles one of those huge spinning wheels made of fireworks that one sees at the climax of a Fourth of July picnic. Call me old fashioned but I think it helps to be less than ten years old to appreciate that particular mode of affectionate self display.
Tahnee Welsh can't act, unfortunately, but looks good just walking around. The three old dudes -- and their wives, and Brian Dennehy -- do quite well. Don Ameche practically renewed his career with this film. And Jessica Tandy STILL looks fine. One of the Antarens has a wordless part and is a ringer for Tyrone Power, probably because he is Tyrone Power, Jr.
The cocoons are being drained of their mojo because of all the humans sucking up to them. The leader of the Antarens generously offers to take a few humans along with him back to his planet. Some go along. Some insist on "playing out the hand they've been dealt, not shuffling the deck again." (It's kind of like Burt Lancaster's character in "Field of Dreams," stuck in the present.) I don't know that I particularly blame the risk-averse old folks who decide to hang back and not live forever. Who would want to be a bus boy or an assistant professor for one thousand years? Anyway, it was a successful movie. It must have been because there was a sequel, meaning that the committee of MBA's sitting up there on Antares decided to greenlight another installment because there was probably another nickel left to be squeezed out of this Fountain of Youth fantasy.
This expedition from Antares (looking quite normal on the outside) comes to Earth to retrieve some cocoons left behind earlier when their planet was about to be turned into a monstrous prune -- something like that, anyway. It doesn't matter.
They retrieve the cocoons from the ocean floor and stash them temporarily in the swimming pool of a deserted Florida mansion. The pool is being secretly and illegally used for wading by a three old dudes from a neighboring retirement community, Wilfred Brimley, Hume Cronyn, and Don Ameche. Without anyone's seeming to realize it, the cocoons are infusing the water with some elan vital that is exponentially more powerful than Geritol and Viagra combined. The boys don't begin to actually look different but they regain, let's say, both their youthful vigor and the turgor associated with it.
Instead of sedate dances at the club to old-time Glenn-Millerish swing music, they go to discos and Ameche does a break dance, wowing the audience. Soon their wives begin enjoying a dip or two as well, and the couples wind up climbing trees and chasing each other through the mangroves.
There's a younger couple too, a girl from Antares (Tahnee Welsh) and the owner of the boat that the aliens have hired (Steve Guttenberg). They fall for each other. The problem is that underneath these plastic exteriors, the Antarens, Tahnee Welsh included, are diminutive bilaterally symmetrical beings with tiny mouths and big eyes and they glow with the blinding, eyeball-coagulating light of an arc lamp. This presents certain problems, as you can imagine, when the young man inquires of Welsh, "How do Antarens, um, express affection for one another." "Not in the way you think," she replies, and we can feel the guy's heart sink, "but we show ourselves." Well, that doesn't sound too bad, especially when Welsh begins showing herself by ridding her plastic body of its hampering outer garments. But then, alas, it gets kind of twisted because the rest of what she "shows" him resembles one of those huge spinning wheels made of fireworks that one sees at the climax of a Fourth of July picnic. Call me old fashioned but I think it helps to be less than ten years old to appreciate that particular mode of affectionate self display.
Tahnee Welsh can't act, unfortunately, but looks good just walking around. The three old dudes -- and their wives, and Brian Dennehy -- do quite well. Don Ameche practically renewed his career with this film. And Jessica Tandy STILL looks fine. One of the Antarens has a wordless part and is a ringer for Tyrone Power, probably because he is Tyrone Power, Jr.
The cocoons are being drained of their mojo because of all the humans sucking up to them. The leader of the Antarens generously offers to take a few humans along with him back to his planet. Some go along. Some insist on "playing out the hand they've been dealt, not shuffling the deck again." (It's kind of like Burt Lancaster's character in "Field of Dreams," stuck in the present.) I don't know that I particularly blame the risk-averse old folks who decide to hang back and not live forever. Who would want to be a bus boy or an assistant professor for one thousand years? Anyway, it was a successful movie. It must have been because there was a sequel, meaning that the committee of MBA's sitting up there on Antares decided to greenlight another installment because there was probably another nickel left to be squeezed out of this Fountain of Youth fantasy.