But he does have sex appeal and he can dance, which unfortunately is just not quite enough to make this movie work, although everyone on the project tries very hard to bring this film to life.
Andie McDowell is her usual delightful self. Her cute mannerisms and homespun sweetness are milked to the full. We've seen Andie play this role any number of times before, you know the one, where she isn't really a person, she's only important so the man has someone to love. And the lover is of course the dashing William Hurt. He is just as wonderful as he can be, except that we've already seen him play this ro le before as well. Hurt plays a disgraced reporter from a reputable paper who has reached his lowest ebb as a tabloid reporter. As such, his part looks a lot like a sequel to Broadcast News. Maybe if Holly Hunter had blown the whistle on him he might have been forced to become the man we see in Michael.
Bob Hoskins plays himself, and his delicious cockney accent offers a deliberate low class tone to his role, and Jean Stapleton's role is good, but brief. Then there is the cute dog who seems to be in t khe movie merely because he is a cute dog.
The greatest disappointment of this whole sad event is that the mastermind of the movie is Nora Ephron, who left us all weeping with joy after Sleepless in Seatle. By the look of this movie, the Ephron's got together one night and came up with a really great concept for a movie which they forgot to flesh out before they began filming.
Indeed, this movie appears to be an attempt to ride crest of two very popular waves. It seems the public can't get enough of John Travolta, especially when he pouts AND frowns at the same time. So by the time he hits the floor in a psuedo-Pulp Fiction dance, it must be assumed that this film will be a hit. Wrong.
Angel stuff is the other fad filling cash registers world wide. I cannot count the ways angels have flooded the media over the last year or so, and lets face it, there i Os only so many ways any product can be milked before the cow begs for mercy.
So on reflection, this film probably isn't real at all, but rather a computer simulation of a movie. A computer geek somewhere mixed Andie McDowell in Groundhog Day, William Hurt in Broadcast News and John Travolta in Pulp Fiction with a whole bunch of those touchie feeling angels television programs and called the composite it created Michael.
Not that Michael is a totally unpleasant experience. There is potential here for a great film, and as it lumbers along, you keep hoping and hoping that one of the promised twists or mysteries of the film will unfold to become something wonderful. Unfortunately, it just never does. There are some cute moments and a few fine performances, but in short, the whole package is a few stripes short of a candy cane.