Generation Gap Pilots ‘Forever Young’

In “Forever Young,” Daniel, a 1940s-era pilot who is grief-stricken after his girlfriend falls into a coma, decides to participate in a cryogenics experiment and thaws out 45 years later. (Rated PG)

Eight-year-old Michael Fox (“not Michael J. Fox”) found much to like in this film, from the novelty of time travel via frozen body to the thrill of prop-plane piloting, even to the sweet, romantic plot.

“Mostly everybody in my class likes romantic movies,” said the third-grader.

“It’s funny because it’s really mostly like a mystery because he’s trying to find out if his girlfriend is still alive.”

Michael said he learned a few things about the 1940s from the movie.

“It would be really weird if maybe something could take me back to that time. You would only have white-and-black TV and you wouldn’t be able to play with the things we have in our time. Maybe they wouldn’t even have movie theaters.”

“I thought Daniel seemed more polite than the people he ran into today,” I said. “He wasn’t used to some of the language people use now.”

“Yeah. And the answering machine. He said, ‘What’s that?’ ”

Michael thought it would be fun to be frozen for about a year. “When I came out and I was all frozen, I would say, ‘Where am I?’ It would be really funny to look at things that you never saw before.”

All things considered, it would probably be better, he thought, to go forward 40 years than backward. “They didn’t have very much doctors back then,” he said.

Michael was surprised that Daniel had difficulty thawing out. “I thought you always could get unfrozen, if they just wake you up. I thought they could.”

Would Michael want to stay young forever?

“Actually, no. I want to grow up until I get to be maybe 40 and then I’ll stop. It would be really fun to be 40 forever.”

On second thought, “it would be really weird to be 40 forever,” he said.

“I would want to grow up all the way until I die,” he said, giggling, “because it would be fun to see what heaven is like.”