Always (1989)

One of the smaller films of Steven Spielberg's oeuvre, Always still bears many of the filmmaker's trademark elements: otherworldly magic, gorgeous cinematography, and a childlike fascination with the skies. There are plenty of loving shots of aircraft arcing across brilliant blue horizons, but the rest of the film serves more as a support structure on which to hang these images, too neat and predictable to stick in the memory. The result is that Always feels prepackaged, a sentimental exercise with little daring beyond the swooping maneuvers of Richard Dreyfuss' fun-loving pilot. It becomes accidentally noteworthy for having been the last film appearance of Audrey Hepburn, who died four years later; that she plays an angel walking through the cornfields gives viewers a serene last image of her. Always may also serve as a balm for those grieving over the loss of a loved one, unsure how to move on with their lives. But with Dreyfuss so much easier to root for as the object of Holly Hunter's affections than the bland Brad Johnson, this becomes something of a mixed message. Spielberg fans may want to check it out for another chapter in the director's ongoing preoccupation with flying machines, which has marked his career from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) to the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers (2001). ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide