Movie Review: Here

This year marks the 30-year anniversary of one of the greatest movies ever made, "Forrest Gump," released in the summer of 1994 and directed by Robert Zemeckis. The powerful and emotional ending of Forrest Gump had an impact as strong as "Terms of Endearment," released in 1983, including audible sounds of sobbing within the audience I was in 30 years ago. Forrest Gump won Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay for Eric Roth, Best Director for Zemeckis, and won Tom Hanks his second best actor Oscar.

The main marketing for the new movie "Here" is the 30-year reunion of Forrest Gump with screenwriter, Eric Roth, who co-wrote "Here" with director Robert Zemeckis, Tom Hanks who plays the lead character Richard and Robin Wright who plays Margaret and who co-starred with Hanks in Forrest Gump.

Here is based on the book of the same name, written by Richard McGuire about a non-linear story told entirely within a single room over hundreds of thousands of years. There are random scenes about different lives and events, never told in any sequential order. There is no doubt that this might be a good idea for a book, but unfortunately trying to adapt this idea to a major movie was a bad idea. Possibly after purchasing the rights to the novel "Here", and later realizing that this unusual concept was not going to work as a highly regarded movie, the idea of bringing back the writer, director, and actors for Forrest Gump for the 30-year anniversary was an attempt to save the box office. With low ratings of 40% on Rotten Tomatoes for this film, a profitable box office is highly unlikely.

Attempting to review "Here" is very difficult because this is not really a movie. This film is more like a a deck of 52 cards representing different scenes and each card is just thrown at the audience at random. We are in the present day, then back to prehistoric times, then we are in the Revolutionary War period, then the Civil War, back to 50 years ago, then revisiting the 1920s, 1950s, present day, and then back to the time of the American Indian. All of this is shown in front of a bay window inside an old house or looking out into a forest during prehistoric times. Making a film like this has never been attempted, but is something like this watchable or even mildly entertaining? The consensus is clear that this film based on a famous book, just does not work as a movie. "Here" is the second film within the last month when a great director missed the mark. The last one "Megalopolis" directed by Francis Ford Coppola was a complete disaster, one of the worst movies I have ever seen.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating of 40% are accurate and only this high because of the acting of Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. This one is a surprisingly big miss.