Boring & Trite

Rating: Null/10 (31 December 2000)

I am not playing devil's advocate, but I cannot in good conscience read all of the hyperbolic praise for this movie without making a dissenting comment.
First, Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks is not an actor. He is a star, perhaps a superstar, and a comforting presence (much like Harrison Ford). I am not an actor, and yet I could have easily done as good a job portraying Forrest Gump as Hanks did. Tom Hanks is appealing in every film in which he appears, I acknowledge. However, I find myself suffering from a Hanks-allergy. This is certainly my loss, but I find Hanks too cloying to endure.
Jimmy Stewart frequently portrayed the same sort of character as Hanks, but Jimmy Stewart had more than one facial expression. Tom Hanks, unfortunately, comes from the Clint Eastwood/John Wayne/Harrison Ford school of acting - which means no acting is required at all, but only looking into the camera and quoting your lines with virtually the same emphasis on every word. Of course, I know that these stars have more talent than that, but not much more.
Second, Robert Zemeckis. Has he really directed a good film since Back to the Future? That film had a few surprises, but Cast Away had none. Was anybody really surprised how it ended? Was there a single element in the middle which surprised? Indeed, if you took out the plane crash and the (admittedly humorous) roleplaying with the volleyball, was there anything about the film which even involved?
Helen Hunt was, well, Helen Hunt. If you are a Helen Hunt fan, then you were probably pleased. If you find her plain and uninteresting (as I do - although my father finds her hot), then she added nothing to the movie.
I have seen worse movies this year, but not many. I hope that this review persuades a few people to spend their money on more worthy efforts - Before Night Fall, for example - and to reconsider the near-veneration that likeable, though not particularly talented, Tom Hanks inexplicably recieves.