Always Movie Review

When asked what their favorite Steven Spielberg movie is, few people, if any, come up with Always, the director's only romance and a remake of a 1944 film. Never mind the airplane flying and the forest fires (the film is set in the high-test world of "smokejumpers," those guys who drop that red extinguishing stuff on fires), this is a movie about a guy (Richard Dreyfuss) who dies in a plane explosion, but doesn't go to heaven (run by Audrey Hepburn, in her final role), instead choosing to stick around the airport and encourage his old girlfriend (Holly Hunter), best pal (John Goodman), and an aspiring pilot (Brad Johnson, the only dud in the cast).

For all its Spielbergian action and production values, the film is painfully sappy and wastes its A-list cast by saddling them with a hamfisted script. Even the name of the film is absolutely awful. Today, Always is mostly remembered for Hepburn's work and for paving the way for the similar Ghost, which arrived a year later and is, shockingly, much better, despite having Patrick Swayze in it.