The Cinema Boy’s review published on Letterboxd:
“Here” is a place you won’t want to be. This movie is dumb as hell. I understand what the overall point and perspective was in intention and it’s a beautiful examination on life. In execution however it’s trite and formulaic and tired and lame and cliche and weird and off putting and pointless and pedantic and forced and utterly ridiculous as a movie. It goes on and on and it never gives any character in the narrative any reason for the audience to care or even distinguish themselves from the other characters in the movie or period. Huge events including births, deaths, divorces and more take place primarily in this room but the context as to why these things are happening is never established which for me made the events land as unauthentically rendered and cheesy examinations of life with an one the nose and dumb essence permeating through the entire experience. This movie is truly so stupid I need inner strength to continue to analyze it. The idea of the writer, director and stars of the seminal Forrest Gump reuniting on a slice of life picture was a tantalizing prospect. If people thought their previous collaboration was corny and dumb, they haven’t seen anything yet. This movie has an ending and overall execution that makes one feel like the brilliance on display Gump (an amazing movie) is a fluke. This film is so corny consistently that it operates in a schmaltzy fashion that is so earnestly forced one feels nothing while taking it in. The entire experience is so hollow and empty. Not to mention odd with the still uncanny valley effect of so much CGI work. Why does Zemeckis demand we all watch creepy, schmaltzy CGI rendered worlds! The characters need context and nuance and inner complexity to become connected to for this picture to land accordingly and Zemeckis seems to not understand that at all. Narratively everything is so trite that it makes the surface level renderings of characters lives in this picture in execution eye rolling to observe. Robert Zemeckis continues to become a worse director as he ages. The seminal movies of yesteryear made by him feel like in reflection to his current work a completely different individual. Everything in execution in his films is now weird and dumb where there was once nuance and complexity consistently. The renderings of lives lived is so generically cliche and pedantically examined. It’s truly idiotic in execution watching what is examined in an individuals life in this film. It makes the act of living feel predictable and lame. There is never an opportunity for the picture to gain momentum or character discernment because extremely formulaic and surface level examinations through time are endlessly explored nonsensically and out of order redundantly. Not only did I roll my eyes more than once during the picture but I also laughed endlessly throughout it when unintentionally funny things happened. Some of the most hilarious moments to me included a random insertion of a deceased Indian woman being thrown into the middle of the screen, an extremely random insertion of a black family in modern times explaining to their son how to handle a police stop, an even more random insertion of people dealing with Covid 19 and wearing masks, but the cheery on top is an alzheimer's riddled Robin Wright, whose character in this picture hates this house her entire life and wanted to move, who literally left Tom Hanks’ character years prior, yet is now sitting in a chair visiting the house again in the empty room and remembering her life. “We were here!” The movie is so bad, it’s truly remarkable. Here is some trivia on the picture: Based on the comic book "Here" by Richard McGuire. It was first published as a strip in the comics magazine "Raw" in 1989, and was expanded into a 300-page graphic novel in 2014. This is the fifth collaboration between Tom Hanks and Robert Zemeckis, after Forrest Gump (1994), Cast Away (2000), The Polar Express (2004), and Pinocchio (2022). The word "here" is spoken by characters approximately 39 times. This film reunites eight cast and crew members from Forrest Gump (1994) - Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, director Robert Zemeckis, writer Eric Roth, cinematographer Don Burgess, composer Alan Silvestri, sound designer Randy Thom, and costume designer Joanna Johnston. Despite playing Tom Hanks' parents in this film, Paul Bettany and Kelly Reilly are 15 and 21 years younger than Hanks, respectively. The film marks the 40th anniversary of director Robert Zemeckis and composer Alan Silvestri whose first film was the adventure comedy Romancing the Stone (1984) starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. Their collaboration spans over four decades in which Silvestri has written the music for all of Zemeckis' films during that span that includes Back to the Future (1985) as well the sequels Back to the Future Part II (1989) and Back to the Future Part III (1990), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Contact (1997), Cast Away (2000) and Oscar winner Forrest Gump (1994), which is also celebrating its 30th anniversary this year as well. Reclining chairs have been around since the 1700s. The founders of La-Z-Boy patented a wooden model in 1928, and an upholstered version in 1930. The TV during the wedding sequence is playing The Ed Sullivan Show (1948), in particular the famous U.S. introduction of The Beatles. Robert Zemeckis's first film, I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978) is set entirely around this one event. This marks the first time Tom Hanks and Robin Wright have acted together since Forrest Gump (1994). Hanks said of the reunion, "We just picked up right where we left off. I'm going to say we love each other because we're so easy with each other. It was a luxury to be able to come in and get the same conversations we've been having for the last 30 years.” While specific years are not always firmly identified, the various storylines of Here take place roughly in the Ice Age, pre-Columbian, 1776, 1900, 1910, 1940, 1945-present, and 2010-2020. But always in the same small spot of earth; It is watchable bad and it ultimately feels like a testimony to the adage “just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should”. It’s an experience, for sure. 2024 Films Ranked
