Overrated, awful hodgepodge of sentiment

Rating: 2/10 (29 June 2002)

One of Oscar's low moments had to be in awarding this picture
best film, best director, and best lead actor. The movie's nothing
but a pastiche of sentimentalism and forced nostalgia, strung
together with soundbytes and pasted-in beautiful visuals, like a
Hallmark card glued onto celluloid.
The whole schtick of having Forrest appear at "key moments" in
the 60s and 70s is just a sort of emotional rorshach blot on film,
designed to allow the viewer to see whatever she or he wants.
Even the soundtrack is a formulaic greatest hits soundtrack.
Vietnam? Creedence! Drug scene in the early 70s? The Doors!
Want to relive the running craze of the 70s? Jackson Browne's
"Running on Empty!" Yes, the movie is that achingly literal.
I'm also stunned Hanks got best actor for this film. Hollywood
really does love actors playing "special" people, doesn't it? (Dustin
Hoffman in Rainman, Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade, etc. )
Hanks is a professional, to be sure, but given the plotless text and
the range of emotions in the character (the whole gamut from
scared and stupid to confused and stupid), it wasn't a whole lot to
work with.
In an allegedly enlightened era, too, there's a lot of humour in this
movie which is basically, "look at how stupid this retarded guy is!
he doesn't know his mother's whoring! he doesn't know a shrimp
boat isn't a tiny little craft! he doesn't get ironic humour like we do!
ha ha ha ha ha!" Pair him up with another such person in the
Vietnam sequences, ha ha, it's so funny the two dummies don't
know the other one is a dummy! So to compliment the trite,
non-dramatic sentimentalism, we have sophomoric comedy at the
expense of the mentally retarded.
The one curiousity is an early performance by Haley Joel Osment
as, of course, a preturnaturally loquacious but cute mop-topped
urchin (spoiler coming) named Forrest Gump Junior.