Review: You won't be 'Wide Awake' for long

March 27, 1998
Web posted at: 3:53 p.m. EST (2053 GMT)

From Reviewer Paul Tatara

(CNN) -- "Wide Awake" (which co-stars Rosie O'Donnell, Dana Delaney, and, for whatever reason, Denis Leary) is a kids' movie, but it's a strange, overreaching case of a kids' movie.

I normally have a hard time reviewing stuff that's aimed at 11-year-olds, for the very good reason that my mental age is way out in the stratosphere, hovering around 15 or 16. "Wide Awake," though, is thematically ambitious enough to keep the older kids interested, while being unbelievable enough to make them wonder who in the world thinks children actually behave like this.

Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, the movie follows the plight of cute little Joshua Beal (Joseph Cross), a Philadelphia Catholic school boy who takes it upon himself to "find God" when his beloved grandfather (Robert Loggia) passes away from bone marrow cancer.

Well, I applaud the attempt, and I can feel for the kid, but when I was Joshua's age (about 9 or 10), I was more concerned with finding my G.I. Joe's misplaced hand grenade belt. The location of an all-knowing Supreme Being was way down on my wish list, several notches beneath the mysterious address of Jimmy Walker.

There are a couple passing references to how smart Joshua is, as if this is supposed to explain the fact that he thinks and talks like an art gallery proprietor in a Woody Allen movie. For instance, Joshua doesn't just "like" girls the way you and I used to, he refers to having "a biological reaction" to them.

To be fair, Cross is a pretty good actor for his age. He knows how to drop a line or raise an eyebrow for a little more impact, but even that ends up working against the movie. He's so eager to knock the audience dead with his knowing line readings, I kept expecting him to drag out some linoleum and start tap dancing. Or maybe reel off a couple of Al Jolson tunes.

Watch the movie trailer 2 min., 15 sec. VXtreme video

None of the adults in the movie (including Delaney and Leary as Cross' parents) seem the least bit impressed at the kid's inclination toward highly expressive abstract thought. The majority of the film consists of Cross grilling the grown-ups in his circle about the reality of God.

The main recipient of these queries is Joshua's favorite teacher, a "wacky" nun played by Rosie O'Donnell, an actress who, on her talk show, actually does burst into Al Jolson tunes. As is so often the case with grown-ups in children's movies, O'Donnell's nun is the victim of cheap, "A Few Good Men"-style character writing.

In that movie, Tom Cruise plays a thoroughly nondescript lawyer with a big neck, but we're supposed to be impressed that he's a different kind of lawyer because he likes to play with a Nerf basketball while he puts his case together and drinks chocolate Yoo-Hoo by the crate.

See a portion of the trailer
	1.8MB / 34 sec. / 240x180 1.2MB / 34 sec. / 160x120 QuickTime movie

When you get right down to it, this kind of stuff is no more insightful than making an actor wear a funny hat, which can be proven quite readily in "Wide Awake," since O'Donnell's Sister Terry teaches Bible class while donning a Philadelphia Phillies cap. That's the entire performance. At least Joe Pesci took the Stanislavsky route and turned his brim up in "Gone Fishin'".

After a while Joshua starts doing stuff like dabbling in Judaism and reciting Muslim prayers at sunset. Yeah, right. Given the day-to-day ordeal of being an affluent 10-year-old, he'd be better off with a Nerf hoop and some chocolate Yoo-Hoo. Then he could grow up to be a lawyer and sue the church into telling him where God is hiding.

"Wide Awake" is more sugary than a whole sack of Sweet Tarts. God does not appear, unless you count Rosie O'Donnell, and I know some of you do. It's rated PG, probably due to the Grandpa death angle. 90 minutes.

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