The Road to Welville (1994)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Dr. John Harvey Kellogg	Anthony Hopkins
Eleanor Lightbody	Bridget Fonda	½
Will Lightbody	Matthew Broderick
Charles Ossining	John Cusack	½
George Kellogg	Dana Carvey	½
Goodloe Bender	Michael Lerner	-
Dr. Lionel Badger	Colm Meaney	-
Endymion Hart-Jones	John Neville	-
Ida Muntz	Lara Flynn Boyle	-

Review

Alan Parker, the man behind such powerful films as Midnight Express and Mississippi Burning, has penned and directed this comedy from T. Coraghessan Boyle's novel about Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, the guy who invented corn flakes. And as the film goes at it trying to charm, entice and entertain you with its influx of ideas and beautiful photography and art direction, it's arguably hard not to give in. Parker has also recruited a talented cast of award-winning actors in free-flowing form. They populate the film with characters so diverse and ultimately outrageous that the film at some point tips over from amusing to chaotic. The film's numerous musings on everything from vegetarianism and women's sex life to Freudian child psychology, and not least, the latest fad of the early 1900s – fitness – arguably make the film "rich", but their abruptness and highly varying degree of weightiness are detrimental to the film's overall effect. The Road to Wellville is two hours of hit and miss. And so when Parker finally decides that we're done and Anthony Hopkins jumps into the water, we've only been a little entertained – at best. At least, the actors seem to enjoy themselves, and none more so than a very funny John Cusack.