Simon Birch

The opening credits prepare you for the worst right off the bat: "Suggested by A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving." Not "adapted from," not "based on," not even "inspired by"...but "suggested by." I wish I had known writer/director Mark Steven Johnson was taking suggestions, because I might have offered a few. For one, he might have retained more than the basic set-up, involving two outcast 12-year-olds in 1960s New England. He might have recognized that Simon (played in the film by Ian Michael Smith) was an arrogant little cuss with a preternaturally mature sense of existential purpose, not a saintly imp. He might have avoided the dreaded voice-over narration (by an uncredited Jim Carrey) that always makes films of this kind feel unnecessarily pretentious. And he might have maintained the light, quirky tone of the film's first half throughout, rather than veering into mawkishness. It's not a horrible film, certainly not with its talented cast including Oliver Platt and Ashley Judd, as well as a few effectively whimsical scenes. Unfortunately, it is a film that bludgeons you with its sentimentality, including a score by the ever-cloying Marc Shaiman that does everything but the orchestral equivalent of yanking out your nose hairs to make you cry, and an "oh by the way, in case you missed it, here's the moral of the story" line of dialogue that's just plain insulting. What a waste of Irving's singularly weird sensibilities to turn it into a trite Hallmark card of a dramatic experience. The power of suggestion can make people do foolish things. Not recommended. (S. Renshaw)