Another reason why I don't like Robert Zemeckis

Rating: 3/10 (7 July 2011)

Despite the 8.7 average rating on IMDb, the many praising reviews it receives and the good opinions of my friends, I wasn't really expecting this film to be anything special. However as it is such a highly regarded film, I thought it was probably worth watching, even if I wasn't going to enjoy it. Why I knew I wasn't going to enjoy it; it won six ocars but other films that were also released that year have since become more well loved (e.g. pulp fiction, the shawshank redemption), I'm not a really big fan of Tom Hanks as an actor (shock horror!) and Robert Zemeckis is definitely my least favourite director, creating films that (in my opinion anyway) have no real aim other than to make some cash. So how did it compare to my pre-judgements? Just as I thought really. There were many problems I found in this movie; to start with the camera angles and the camera movement made the film hard to look at visually, as the people and object moving looked very unnatural. Another problem is that aside from Forrest, all of the characters seem one dimensional as they were all extremely underwritten. Leading on from that, for me, the script is a major problem; the dialogue is incredibly tedious, every line made me sigh with frustration, but that isn't the main problem with the dialogue; I watched the film with friends and every few seconds I heard them laughing at the things Forrest says, however that's something I couldn't get into, I felt that there is something very malicious about laughing at a man with some kind of mental handicap. Though the dialogue isn't the only problem with the script, the whole story is beyond unrealistic. Although it isn't unlikely for someone to drift through life and for things to just happen to them, it is unlikely for the majority of them to be such good and life changing things, especially for a man with a mental disability, from a non-privileged background, at this time period. I also find it a little bit sneaky that they never mention what is wrong with Forrest, it seems to be they did this so they could include some parts of the plot, for example him having sex with Jenny and they her having a child, that I doubt would happen in real life to people in his condition. However, none of this is exactly enraging for me, the only thing that really makes my blood boil, is the Vietnam sequence. Films that have been made about the Vietnam war have been made with the soul purpose to let audiences know, that war is hell and war will destroy you, but Forrest's narration tells us that his experience in Vietnam was fun, which goes against everything films like Platoon, The Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now stand for and aside from a few seconds of footage, nothing shows the horrors of the war, it's unrealistic and highly insulting to the people who fought in the war. Though as I have given it 3/10, there obviously must be a few plus points, there are about three. The effects that put Forrest in with archive footage and very well done and well edited, Gary Sinise is very good in an underwritten part, the fact he didn't win an Oscar is a travesty and there are some huggable children in it. Though that doesn't make up for the obvious flaws in this movie.