Review of The Forgotten (2004) by Ely E — 07 Oct 2010

Julianne Moore has talent, there is little space to say otherwise, but she has done many career mistakes, and this one might be her biggest one: The Forgotten. The Forgotten is really forgettable, you won't remember half of it by the time you reach the end.

Julianne Moore is a mother who's lost her son in a plane crash, about 5 years before the film begins. She wakes one morning and finds that all the pictures of the boy are missing, and his tapes are also gone too. Her doctor tries to tell her there was no accident, nor did she have a son. Her husband agrees, and pretty much does everyone else. A neighbor, who also lost a child in the accident, doesn't seem to remember either. But she tries to make him recall, but when he does the police is upon the place, thinking that she's schizofrenical. The two of them start running, trying to fin answers of why no on remembers but them, and discovers that an organization with strange powers might be behind this.

Somthing that seems that all critics have agreed with is that the premise of this film starts growing more ridiculous by every scene after some point, and I have to agree on that. The film's plot starts interesting, begging for answers and leaving the audience wanting for more, but when it reaches a point it becomes quite dull and uninterest, not to mention the fact that it becomes ridiculously stupid.

Also, the performances in overall didn't help the film alot either. Julianne Moore was okay, but as I said before she does have talent. Christopher Kovaleski, who plays her neighbor, can't seem to believe what he's saying, and when the words come out they sound as forced as they can possibly be. And there is little energy between the two. The rest of the cast (with the exception maybe of Gary Sinise who was decent) are't capable of delivering a worthy performance either.

And we have the script, of course. Most of the time scripts are what bring films down. This film's script was lousily written, with no emotion to any of the characters and with stupid or corny dialogues. But what I really hatred about this film was its ending. The supernatural twist was quite stupid, but that wasn't what really got into my nerves. As I said, the film started to become absurd and dull, but I kept watching because I wanted to know how had they erased the children from everyone's memories, but by the time we reach an end the answer to this isn't provided, instead it is revealed why. The why was important yes, but what interested me was the how. And that, immediately and automaically, made me hate this film. To that point, it had around a 40, but then, because of the stupid supernatural "twist" they gave, and the answer they left in blank, made it drop 20.

So there you have it, The Forgotten had potential at the beginning, but the silly twists along the way, its ridiculous storyline, the mediocre to bad performances and the last unanswered question made this film an absurd, bland and ultimately forgetable ride.

My Score: 22%.

My recommendation: You'd rather skip this.

Watch this film, and it will be forgotten a couple of minutes after its done.