why i hated Forrest Gump

Rating: 3/10 (19 March 2008)

I know I'm not the only one who hated this movie. In fact I'm not even the only person in my family that hated this movie, my mom and sister did too, and I have met other people who hated this movie throughout the years since it came out. Unfortunately, it hasn't been too many people at all.
Enough of that, I of course looked and heard why people seem to like this movie so much. But I couldn't disagree more. The whole plot of the movie is ridiculous -- how a mentally challenged person could go through or cause all these historical events and fads. For example, creating the smiley face, the s*** happens bumper sticker, catching the people in the Watergate scandal, winning a medal of honor, becoming a ping-pong champion (like an American can ever win that!), becoming an all-American athlete for football, running across the country, falling in love with a drug-addicted stripper (well i guess this one's believable as he is mentally challenged), speaking out against the Vietnam war after he won the medal of honor for it, etc. STUPID, STUPID, STUPID. Running some more, STUPID, STUPID, STUPID. Then just quitting for no apparent reason, STUPID, STUPID, STUPID!!!!
OK, now the good parts of it. Yes there are some things I liked about the movie. The cinematography was beautiful (and I'm a big fan of this as I believe it helps set the tone of a movie), but it's useless because there is nothing for it to enhance. I also liked Gary Sinise in this; Lt. Dan is actually a cool character. And of course, the soundtrack is awesome...Now only if we can mute everyone but Gary Sinise and the music, I might be able to sit through this movie again. One can only hope...
Now back to the not so good to outright horrible. I never read the book by Winston Groom so I can't say if they did the book justice or not, and I really don't care. I mentioned how much I hated the basic premise for this movie, but the dialog doesn't help either, with it's cheesy axioms and pathetic southern accents (I used to live in TN, and I don't remember the accents being that bad). Whatever, I can live with the accents, but I prefer the exaggerated ones in "Fargo" (I thought they sounded cool). Anyway, now onto the acting: Tom Hanks wasn't great in this movie at all. How hard is it to play somebody that doesn't change from one scene to the next. He walks, talks, and acts the same in every scene of the movie. This had to have been Hanks' easiest performance to play...and it won him his second Oscar. But of course this isn't the first time that's happened. See Dustin Hoffman in "Rain Man," but at least that was a good movie.
I like a lot of Robert Zemeckis's films by the way to include "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" "Contact" and even "Beowulf," but this one, he asked way too much for me to believe. I actually think the events of "Star Wars 1-6" were more likely to have occurred than the events in this movie. A lot has been said about his right wing political agenda; I don't care; it's his movie, he can do what he wants with, but I don't have to agree. Also that this movie is stereotypical to blacks. I always wondered what African Americans thought about some of the stuff in it as I don't think it was meant to be racist, but some of it kind of came off like it. I guess it's up to them to decide.
Now onto the last part of my comment which doesn't have anything to do with why I like/dislike any part of the movie. I've been called a Communist, un-American, and other worse things for hating this movie. Really what is the point. I don't put other people down for not liking movies I like. Everybody's is entitled to their own opinion. Furthermore, I thought I lived in (and fought for) a country where I can like or dislike whatever movie I want. I don't like movies because everyone else does, and just because Hollywood or the media says that a movie is good, doesn't mean that it is. In fact I tend to disagree with Hollywood a lot. Anyway, isn't having to like something that's jammed down my throat communist in itself? Anyway, if I had to choose between becoming a communist and liking this movie, I would choose communism without a second thought or regret.
If I was rating this movie on how much I actually liked it, I would give it a -infiniti just on the stupid screenplay alone. Too bad, it took awhile for "The Shawshank Redemption" to get popular, or that would have swept the Oscars that year.