Amazon.com Essentials:
After the box-office success of Phenomenon, John Travolta
continued to charm audiences with this 1996 comedy-fantasy in which he
plays a grubby angel who's got one last good deed to do before heading back
to heaven. Living peacefully in the rural Iowa home of an old, friendly
motel owner (Jean Stapleton), the winged Michael (Travolta) is hardly the
image of a perfect angel. He's scruffy, unshaven, eats sweetened cereal by
the box-full and chain-smokes all day long. But when tabloid reporters
(William Hurt, Robert Pastorelli) learn of Michael's alleged existence and
head to Iowa to check him out, Michael soon realizes that it's his task to
see that Hurt falls in love with an "angel expert" (Andie MacDowell) and
breaks free from his habitually cynical attitude. There's more to the
story, of course (and Chasing Amy fans will
recognize Joey Lauren Adams as a waitress who charms the angel), but
Michael is more about the effect that this enchanting angel has on the
earthbound humans around him. Whether he's chipping away at Hurt's
skepticism or attracting a crowd of women on a truck-stop dance floor,
Michael is an enchanting figure, and Travolta plays him with just the
right tone of humor, reverence, and effervescent charm. Sure, it's
lightweight fluff, but director Nora Ephron specializes in lightweight
fluff, and Michael is the kind of feel-good movie that never wears out its
welcome. --Jeff Shannon
