Forrest Gump Review

Duhh... so like, duhh... I watched this 'ere movie about this man who looks like the guy from the Da Vinci code- only sounding a lot like Woody (if he smoked pot) in uhh... Monster Story 2: Finding Wall-E or somethin to that effect. He's like The Flash and...

Damn it, I can't keep up with this ruse. All the chocolate you'll ever want- after the jump.

So here we are: the Best Picture winner Forrest Gump. It was released in the mid-90s and directed by the now-strictly-motion-capture-dude Robert Zemeckis. Yea, he's also responsible for Back to the Future.

Well about this movie. I think it's a feel-good movie in the sense that it just makes you feel so happy that your intellect is not on par with that of the titular character, yet jealous because the man impossibly became a little too prosperous and lucky (clue: his prosperity is related to a certain restaurant found in Greenbelt) despite his sheer naïveté! The movie's message (and possibly the reason why it's such a freaking crowd pleaser) is that ignorance will very much get you places (literally).

The charcter is simply too implausible, not to mention overly dumb and childlike, but here's the catch: I still LIKE this movie.

Maybe it's Tom Hanks' charm, or maybe it's the setting and the narrative style, or the screenplay by Tim Roth. I mean, it didn't win 5 more Oscars aside from Best Picture just for nothing!

I simply adore how the people in the cutting room floor managed to make archived video from the 50's, 60's and 70's blend right in to the character's situation. I mean, footage of several US Presidents are shown here and they seem as if they RESPOND to the expertly green-screened Tom Hanks. Dude, it's 2009 and the effects in this movie, or rather how they are implemented remains unmatched in my opinion.

Another thing that makes the movie work is the performances. Tom Hanks largely deserves the Best Actor award because he contributes largely to the movie's success. I mean, if the role was acted badly, it could've ended up as a really irritating movie about a dumbass. But with Tom Hanks, it ends up as a surprisingly charming and lively movie about, well, a dumbass! The other actors deserve credit as well. Robin Wright (now a Penn) plays her role well, and Sally Field is a warm screen presence.

Lemme say this again: it's 2009. That also means that another Tim Roth-penned film- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button- has finished its theatrical run. Why mention another project by the same screenwriter? Well, it's because there are a LOT of similarities between them with regards to the style of plot progression, the amount of symbolism (feather here, hummingbird there), the accents and, damn it, the architecture of their houses, I think! This means that if you watch one of them before watching the other, you'll definitely have an impression of how the story of the other one unfolds- and a dose of déjà vu.

I think this movie is actually one to watch. It may not appeal to all, but you just gotta admire the effort put into this rather nice movie. While I had some rather mixed feelings about it at times, the positive feelings overpower the negative ones.

Personally, I'd love to talk about this movie with another person (who has watched the movie) because just now as I'm typing this review, I just realized that "Hey, what if the actual message was 'Don't let dumbness or disability drag you down!' or 'We shouldn't underestimate people like Forrest.' or 'People will always need a little innocence in life.' (the latter was influenced by the fact that Forrest doesn't age a bit!)". I know that it'll somehow be a testament to the movie's unclear direction (ie, to what conclusion it wants to lead the viewer) as well as the director's (or screenwriter's) inability to convey a definitive message, but it makes the movie open to much interpretation as well!

An 8/10. Hey, why forget the movie that gave us the seemingly immortal, "Mama always said that life is like a box'o'chock-lits--- you never know what you're gonna get," eh?

Posted with LifeCast