Monday, June 26, 2006

It's fun to be BIG!


Big is the kind of movie that makes you want to be a kid again. Tom Hanks plays a convincing thirteen-year-old boy trapped in the body of a thirty-year-old man.

Josh is a normal kid who loves to ride his bike and joke around with his best friend. After being denied from riding a roller coaster at the fair because of his height, Josh decides that he wants to be a grown up. After dropping a quarter into the Zoltar machine, he makes a wish to be “big.” The next morning Josh woke up as a grown man. His mother who doesn’t know he has been transformed then chases him out of the house.

With a little help from his best friend, Josh gets a cheap hotel room in New York City and a job at a toy manufacture. While working in the corporate world, Josh stays a kid at heart and ultimately lands a demanding and competitive promotion with a huge salary increase, which he buys toys, bunk beds and a soda machine among other
things not normally found in a thirty year old bachelor's NYC apartment, (very funny). His child like qualities are enticing to a lady co-worker, but mocked by others. The audience is then shown how quickly the kid at heart gets caught up in an adult world of working relentlessly, complicated relationships and responsibilities. Josh loses the child inside and his friendship with Billy for money, deadlines and competition. After a while Josh misses his family and childhood. He realizes that he is missing out on growing up to be big. In the end he finds a Zoltar machine, makes a wish and is transformed back to being a kid.

This movie is sweet and touching. It has themes running throughout that remind you not to take life too seriously and lose the child inside. It also had a deeper meaning on eighties materialism and corporate America; a sort of reference that it creates greed and anti-family values. Over all, Big is a enjoyable movie to watch with a great message and should be watched by many generations to come.

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