Neverwas

By: Lovey

Director: Joshua Michael Stern
Cast: Aaron Eckhart, Ian McKellen, Brittany Murphy, Nick Nolte, Jessica Lang, William Hurt, Bill Bellamy and Allan Cumming
Rating: 1.5 out of 5

Every now and again a great movie slips past the cinemas and lands on the DVD shelf unnoticed.

Well, am sorry to say, Neverwas is NOT one of those flicks.

To put it bluntly, it’s a fantasy that never leaves reality, there are no real highs and lows, just a fast flowing story that is unamusingly predictable and bland.

Don’t be fooled by the star studded cast either. Sure, it might have some big names led by Aaron Eckhart, but it’s still pretty lame. Eckhart plays Zach Riley, a therapist trying to work out why his father (Nick Nolte) a famous children's book author, lost the plot and killed him self when Zach was just a boy.

Brittany Murphy plays her typical loopy role as Zach's love interest and a childhood friend obsessed with his father's book named, yep you guessed it Neverwas.

Jessica Lang is the eccentric mother, who she plays well, but unfortunetly does not feature for much of the film.

Ian McKellen features as mental patient Gabriel Finch, but for me it was like watching some other actor do a bad impression of Gandalf from Lord of the Rings.

Finch is a patient in the institute Zach works at and claims to be from this mystical land "Neverwas". In his search for the truth behind his father's death, Zach gets caught up in Gabriel's world resulting in him temporarily also loosing the plot.

I'd say watch Neverwas only if you really can't resists a bit of Eckhart or Murphy action or if there is absolutely nothing else left on the self at your local DVD store.

In a word: Never-shoulda-been