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 . 
