Big (1988)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Joshua "Josh" Baskin	Tom Hanks	½
Susan Lawrence	Elizabeth Perkins
Mr. MacMillan	Robert Loggia
Paul Davenport	John Heard
Billy Francis Kopecki	Jared Rushton	½
Young Josh	David Moscow	½
Scotty Brennen	Jon Lovitz	-
Mrs. Baskin	Mercedes Ruehl	-
Miss Patterson	Debra Jo Rupp	-

Review

In retrospect, it's hard not to see this successful fantasy comedy in the Freaky Friday mould as a missed opportunity for director Penny Marshall and screenwriters Gary Ross and Anne Spielberg. The film is so benign that it's almost bloodless, but it still manages to wind up in an icky, standardized rom-com subplot that's everything you don't want it to be and certainly takes away quite a bit of the picture's smug innocence. The obvious question this leaves you with is: Since they went there, why did they sidestep all the other everyday challenges and far more realistic perils this manchild would face? And why not explore the absolutely most dire aspect of the story in more detail, his mother's situation? I guess that's for another movie. Granted, you shouldn't assess the movie you wanted to see, you should assess the one on the screen before you. And except for Tom Hanks' semi-charismatic, semi-accomplished performance and his rapport with a refreshingly good-natured Robert Loggia, there's not enough content here to create the warm, life-affirming celebration of youth that the filmmakers thought they were making.