8 Utterly Boring Openings That Spoiled Great Movies
6. Big
Going against the curb of the surprisingly saturated genre of age-changing comedies, Big didn't go the body swap route, instead having Josh Baskin simply age eighteen years overnight. Makes as just about as much sense as body swapping, I guess. Although its enduring legacy seems to be just that big keyboards are cool, Big proved a massive smash hit back in 1988 and put Tom Hanks on the map as an instantly likeable leading man. It mostly holds up today too, which cant be said of all eighties favourites. However, in amongst the carefree tone, theres a slight problem that irks me every time I watch it. Josh is a slightly geeky, but for all intents and purposes typical, twelve year old boy. He likes toys, is going through his first crush and spends all his free time with his best friend. But even though this a character we all can immediately relate to, the film still spends plenty of time establishing his quirks just so you definitely know that he is. The issue here, as with any big concept movie, is that you go into Big ready for Josh to get his big-ness on, so any added time spent shooting the breeze is amplified. This is a minor complaint in the film and one that appears in screenplays of all genres, but Big, so perfect otherwise, stands out as a big offender.
