_**Discovering the "fountain of youth"**_
On the surface "Cocoon" (1985) is about elderly folks at a retirement home in Florida unknowingly finding the "fountain of youth" via a pool on an adjacent property. A peculiar group of people rent the property to store boulder-like objects they take from the bottom of the ocean. As such, the pool acquires healing powers and restore's the old folk's youthful vigor.
Steve Guttenberg stars as the likable protagonist, the boat owner/operator who helps the people get to the objects in the ocean, but he has no idea what's really going on. The stunning Tahnee Welch, Raquel's daughter, plays one of the members of the peculiar group to whom Guttenberg's character takes a liking. Unlike Raquel, who's known for being a bit biyatchy, Tahnee shines with a winsome disposition. Brian Dennehy is also on hand as the leader of the odd group, and he does very well.
Most great movies have a deeper subtext, and so it is with "Cocoon." The story is a commentary on aging, death, grieving and the yearning for eternal life. The people of the peculiar group are types of angels or, better yet, the redeemed in glorified bodies. What they offer is the gospel, the key to eternal life in the "new heavens and new earth, the home of righteousness" (2 Peter 3:13). By "the redeemed in glorified bodies" I'm referring to the glorious bodies that are promised to believers at the time of their bodily resurrection (1 Cor. 15:42-44); these bodies will be imperishable, powerful and spiritual (not carnal) in nature. Believers will be able to defy gravity with these new bodies, walk through doors and teleport from one place to another, all of which can be observed in Jesus Christ after his resurrection.
Needless to say, "Cocoon" has an incredible subtext. But it's not necessary to get so deep. This is just an entertaining movie with a good heart. More than that, it's inspiring. On the downside, the final act is overextended and should've been trimmed down.
The film runs 1 hour, 57 minutes, and was shot in the Clearwater/St. Petersburg area of Florida with the underwater scenes done in the Bahamas.
GRADE: A-
**It deserves to be remembered nowadays.**
I think the 80's were, maybe, the golden age of alien movies. Between comedies or horror films, the quality is quite satisfactory and there is plenty to choose from. This film is, however, one of the least known, perhaps due to the light way in which everything was approached, and it has even fallen into unfair oblivion today. For me, it was a movie that worked better precisely because of that, not least because I'm not a particularly big fan of alien movies.
The film, in fact, is a very light and familiar comedy, pleasant and not made to think too much, nor to be an award-winning film. I really got the feeling that it was an unpretentious project that, at the time, gave very good results, having even won two Oscars, for Best Visual Effects and Best Supporting Actor (for veteran Don Ameche).
The script is quite simple: a group of friendly old timers from a nursing home, who have the habit of visiting the pool of a neighboring abandoned mansion, have just discovered that their new owners have mysteriously changed the water with gigantic stones from the bottom of the sea: now, in addition to being warm, the water seems to have the ability to restore their youthful vitality and health. What they don't know is that the stones are, in fact, emergency pods left by an alien civilization that had an exploration base in the sea, nearby, which we learned to call Atlantis... and that the new owners of the abandoned house they are really aliens from a rescue team that came to collect the pods left behind thousands of years ago.
The film has a great cast that includes venerable names such as Don Ameche, Maureen Stapleton, Jessica Tandy, Wilford Brimley and Jack Gilford. In fact, and despite the merits of younger actors like Steve Guttenberg and Brian Dennehy, it is a film made to allow veteran actors a good opportunity to shine and show that age is numbers. I think I won't be exaggerating if I say that everyone enjoyed the film well and showed that they are doing very well, and that talent doesn't fade with age. I especially liked Brimley and Stapleton. Guttenberg has done better in other films, and Tahnee Welch doesn't do very well here either.
On a technical level, it's a very well-made film: the cinematography extracts the best of the sunny and seemingly paradisiacal environments of the places where the film was made, and the visual and special effects used fulfill their role in the film very well. We might even think that there are some cheap clichés, like the light on the boat, or the flying saucer, but as I said above, it's a light film, and we're only being unfair or overly demanding if we think about things like that. The soundtrack was in charge of James Horner, with whom Howard will make a series of films, and fulfills his role very well, without much fuss.
