Well, The Forgotten turned out to be a rather forgettable experience. I had hoped that this was going to be an original supernatural thriller, but that turned out to be misguided. The trailers looked promising, but they tend to make even bad films look exciting. The trailer seemed to show a straight forward thriller but seemed to have something else in it that was being downplayed. Some sort of alien involvement or some such thing, judging by the house getting ripped up.
I don't really want to go into too many of the plot points, out of respect for those who still wish to see it, but I will say that this entire exercise of a movie is completely implausible. I am good at being able to suspend disbelief, but some of the choices made in this film are completely irrational and can't be reconciled with the situation that they find themselves in. I will, however give a few thoughts about the film in general, if I didn't this review would be a waste of all of our time.
The concept of the film was good and could have been grounds for a great film, if it had been in better creative hands. The idea of a persons life being completely erased from existence, frightening to say the least. But here it is treated in such a heavy handed manner and sped along at a speed that makes it hard to completely grasp what is going on that it's effect is lost on this viewer. The initial setup is just too fast, we don't get a good enough feel for the characters before they are thrown into turmoil. Because of this we don't get a true look at the characters, and before we know it things are disappearing and memories are vanishing. It plays out like a bad episode of the X-Files.
Julianne Moore stars as Telly, a woman whose son is apparently being erased. Throughout the first act all memories, physical and mental, are disappearing. Somehow Telly remembers her phantom son, although it could be that she is just creating the memory of him to fill a void in her life, as suggested by her psychiatrist. Before we know it, she has met with another potential victim of memory loss and together they are off and running to find their possibly missing children. The second act is a chase, FBI, police, some other organization, all after Telly and her new friend Ash/ The third act is where everything falls into place, and also where logic goes out the window.
Article comments
1 - Sam Jack
What was wrong with the shooting was that the shots were all the same. I got to thinking, "Is it ever daylight in New York?"
And then, even though it was supposedly suspenseful, all that ever happen was sudden booms and explosions, and then more running around. Boom, explosions, run around, and so on.