birthdays often cause individuals to access their lives . are we doing what we want to be doing ? what happened to our dreams ? with the new millennium , our collective big birthday , just around the corner , some people are sensing a certain dissatisfaction with their existence . the old standbys of traditional religion and science aren't doing it for many anymore and they're looking for something else . we'll be seeing more and more films with a metaphysical theme over the next few years . ricky hayman ( jeff goldblum ) is having a career crisis . the programming director for the good buy home shopping network , he's going to be fired unless sales increase dramatically . new producer kate newell ( kelly preston ) is supposed to whip things into shape . when the two are fixing a flat , they almost run down new age pilgrim " g " ( murphy ) . g wanders onto the television set and connects with the viewers by telling them that they don't really want all that commercial crap . in some unexplained manner , this causes sales to sour . ricky is saved . the movie tries to be too much at once and fails at it all . it's not an over-the-top comedy or a heart-warming message of humanity . it _is_ a mish-mosh of poorly directed scenes made even worse by insipid dialog . i am willing to put up with preaching from a film , but the messages here are old hat . you should take time to smell the roses . selling your soul for cash is a bad idea . golly . i'm glad i saw the movie . i never would have thought of these . the opportunity to poke fun at the goofy products is mostly missed . when g takes a chainsaw to the set , there's an obvious chance for murphy to be hilarious . it doesn't happen . the bits are so subdued and overly-long that there's only a hint of laughter from the audience . murphy has changed his roles in recent years and not for the better . there are hints of promise in this one . the only time the film picks up even a little is when his shaved-headed character in the long flowing white caftan shows up on screen . the others are horrendous . goldblum has episodes of brilliance in his career , but here he seems to have been replaced with a lifeless pod from his " invasion of the body snatchers " . his relationship with kate makes no sense . they move from antagonism to love somewhere off screen . preston is as uninteresting as she could possibly be . somewhere hidden deep inside of this film is about ten minutes of value . an attempt to satirize stupid television , we get a self-parody instead . [this appeared in the 10/15/98 " bloomington independent " , bloomington , indiana . michael redman can be contacted at <a href= " mailto : redman@indepen . com . " >redman@indepen . com . </a>] -- <a href= " mailto : mailto : redman@indepen . com " >mailto : redman@indepen . com</a> this week's film review at <a href= " http : //www . indepen . com/ " >http : //www . indepen . com/</a> film reviews archive at <a href= " http : //us . imdb . com/m/reviews_by ? michael%20redman " >http : //us . imdb . com/m/reviews_by ? michael%20redman</a> 
