A Review by Phil Calabro
2004, Columbia Pictures/Revolution Studios, Dir. Joseph Ruben - Starring Julianne Moore, Dominic West, Gary Sinise, Anthony Edwards, Christopher Kovaleski, Jessica Hecht, Alfre Woodard, Carl Dayton
Some things are better left unsaid. And never before this year have I wanted to use this old axiom than for this recent venue for moviegoers, The Forgotten. It amazes me that a movie like this ever made it this far - especially when your story is completely unfinished....or really bad. Or maybe both. The movie has plot holes so large it could swallow Michael Moore whole - overall, this is one huge steaming pile of cinematic garbage, just another for the record books of 2004, folks.
The plot, as I guess we could call it, focuses on the struggles of Telly Paretta (Moore), who is grieving the death of her young son Sam (Kovaleski). But when strange things start happening, such as memories of her son disappearing one by one, she believes her husband (Edwards) is behind it. Then she learns the shocking truth - she never had a son at all, and that her psychiatrist (Sinise) tells her she is dillusional. She can't take this easily, so she goes after the father (West) of a daughter who also died with Sam in the same plane crash (I didn't know people took planes to go to summer camp), and when he remembers, they go out to find the truth behind all of this, and why everybody's memory is being erased. If you want to add aliens into the story, flip to page 33. To add killer sharks, flip to page 47, etc. etc.
I pity Julianne Moore. She is an attractive and very talented woman in Hollywood, and the best she can get is this hunky-junk role as a crazy mom? She would have been better off in a John Waters movie than this. She holds the exact same expression throughout the film: this wretched distraught whimper and turns into a half-smile when she thinks about her stupid kid. Dominic West is unconvincing as a drunk father, and bares an uncanny resemblance to a man with a similar level of talent in acting, Mark Ruffalo. He's either a raving lunatic, or a simple-minded bore. Gary Sinise is as stiff as Al Gore in a body cast - he's one of the most uninteresting characters in the film, our token psychiatrist - no expression, no sign of talent, no use. And Anthony Edwards somehow hasn't realized that he's not in Thunderbirds anymore.
Here is the movie broken down into adjectives. First off, it's repetitive. Every three minutes, we get the same stupid flashback of this ugly kid with a couple of face tics waving at Julianne Moore. We get nothing new in any of the flashbacks, almost as if they took an X-Files episode and added a load of filler to it. Every flashback of the children makes you want to blow an airhorn in your ear. Second off, it's incoherent. I could even accept Torque as a movie because it was an entire story and explained everything (still doesn't take away the fact that it's still the worst movie of the year). The Forgotten is an unfinished story. Important scenes aren't explained, they are assumed - cutting straight into the Achilles' heal of a movie's relationship with its audience. Instead of being a little more understanding, director Ruben would rather have heart-jolting scenes of horror than an explanable storyline. And third off, it's cliched. I'm not even dipping into that. Make your own assumptions.
The Forgotten should be wiped off the face of this earth for being such a waste of good film. This is just another example of me getting angry watching a movie - when a premise that could've been promising turns into a carnival involving hackneyed scares and cliches with aliens on top. It felt like the dreadful 10 minute twist ending of 'The Village' evolved into an hour and a half mess. Please please don't see the movie The Forgotten. If you do, remind me to erase your memory after it. (winks eye)
0/4 stars
