One of the most over-rated American films of all time!!!

Rating: 2/10 (15 January 2004)

How can you start talking about a movie like "Forrest Gump" without being bias on the whole hype that has been surrounding it since it came out. For someone who actually knows about films, it is a personal insult that the Academy Awards considered this movie to be in higher standards than...

Pulp Fiction The Shawshank Redemption Quiz Show and even Four Weddings and a Funeral
and how could Robert Zemeckis' (I hate that name) work be considered better than...
Krzysztof Kieslowski for RED!!!!!!!!!!! Quentin Tarantino for PULP FICTION!!!!!! Woody Allen for BULLETS OVER BROADWAY!!!!!! Robert Redford for QUIZ SHOW!!!!!!! Not to mention that the Academy is such an airhead that Frank Darabont the director of The Shawshank Redemption wasn't even nominated!!!!!!
Let's consider MANY important factors for this movie to be loved blindly, without a true sense of reflection and observation.
Number 1: I have to much time on my hands,
Number 2: It stars Tom Hanks who undoubtedly represents the white, flawless way of American Life. He is the Jimmy Stewart of today (that could not hurt). He is talented, but highly overrated. He has some excellent performances, but he always seems the same to me. He could never have the talent that actors like Gary Oldman, Ed Harris, Sean Penn, Russell Crowe or Denzel Washington have to reinvent themselves every time in a different role. He is the typical American male sweetheart, regardless everybody loves him. His star power more than his ability as an actor helped this movie to get sold and appreciated.
Number 3: Stories about characters with disabilities always, and I mean always sell in Hollywood (Rainman, I am Sam, Nell, My Left Foot, Awakenings, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) not that I am saying that these great films compare to Forrest Gump, but the idea itself whether good or bad sells.
Number 4: The history of the United States is taken rather lightly in this movie, all the events that take place around the character happen without his knowledge in the most unconvincing of methods. Racism, Vietnam, meeting a number of American Presidents, his unheard speech at Lincoln Memorial, the hippies, drugs, Bubba Gump shrimp, apple computers, amongst other historic events in which the character gets involved, but does not seem to grasp the magnitude of those very events. He is mentally handicaped as we are shown from the beginning, so because we are suppose to believe that he is emotionally handicap too. He never seems to get emotionally affected by anything, unless it involves Jenny, even then it does not appear to be convincing or moving in any way.
Number 5: The story itself appears to me as manipulative, sappy, uncompromised and made in half measures. It touches certain issues, but never dwells on them with justice. The ingenuity of the character, his disability seems enough reason to feel that all the events are seen with a certain depth. Which they are not. It is unfair, because Hanks' charm and Gump's likeable stupidity work as a hook to entangle people's emotions. It never allows for anyone to make an effort to see beyond the story and into the gut of what was attempted to be said.
Number 6: Stupid moments, everybody loves them, Hollywood is an expert of what people like and what they want to spend their money on. Gump begins a "marathon" across the country for no real reason at all, half way decides he's had enough, by then the entire country was following him (as a metaphor for the movie itself). Elvis Presley the King or Rock ends up as a youngster, who knows how, in Gump's house as a visitor. Gump who has braces in his legs miraclously teaches him the dance moves that made him famous. Something that I personally cannot consider to be taken lightly is an issue like the Vietnam War, but Forrest somehow manages to run in and out the jungle in the middle war saving people left and right. Maybe Zemeckis never read a book or even watched a film (Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Casualties of War) to illustrate him on what really happened on that war. Young soldiers were getting killed by the dozen. Forrest Gump is a fairy tale based on unfounded grounds and hypocritical notions of "reality". Oliver Stone dedicated his film Platoon to the American soldiers in Vietnam, he went there for real and saw what happened. Zemeckis has decided to ignore all these factors and still believe that his adored character could even be immune to a experience like Vietnam (in every aspect possible).
To conclude please do not let yourself be manipulated, not just because Forrest Gump won the oscar for Best Picture makes it one of the best films of the 90's. The "sweetness" of this movie is not even sweet, its only the a ploy, a sales pitch of the American Dream. In 20 years who will remember Forrest Gump, and more importantly who will remember that film when The Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction are still in people's memories for real reasons. They are art films, Forrest Gump the oscar's favorite.
And seriously folks if you haven't seen Kieslowski's RED run over to blockbuster and rent it. Its the end of the Color Trilogy. Then you'll know what we mean.
thank you. VIVA EL CINE!!!!