Stupid is as stupid does, and "Forrest Gump" proves it

Rating: Null/10 (13 December 1998)

I was surprised to find so many others who held the same opinion as I about the movie "Forrest Gump". The nation laughed and cried along with Forrest throughout the course of the movie and through pure visceral emotion, resulted in Academy Awards out the wazoo. If this movie evoked any kind of response out of me, I might say it made me cry... out of pure boredom. I was disappointed in the ridiculousness of "Forrest Gump", a lot of the reason being because I hold Tom Hanks in such high regard and never once thought that he would be one to promote the patronizing American Dream theory. It completely blows my mind that this movie received so many awards and so much hype when it is utterly unbelievable and absolutely unrealistic. The braces bursting from Forrest's legs, his unintentional football scholarship to college, his meeting the president (and might I add his only words to Mr. Kennedy were "I have to go pee"), his millions earned through ping-pong, his (how pathetic) running across America four times for "no reason at all", his "inventing" the happy face symbol by wiping his face on a towel... all this is just incredibly... stupid, if I may be so blunt. The movie attempts to show that to succeed in life, one does not need to be overly intelligent, all one needs is a lot of heart. Very touching, but dense all the same and the movie is so far out that viewers only see it as entertainment and will not derive motivation to make something of themselves. Tom Hanks does a wonderful job and is convincing as a mentally-challenged man, but the movie as a whole, the supposed "story-line" and non-existent plot are pathetic and hold no ground. "Forrest Gump" deserved no awards in my opinion.