For about 20 minutes, I seriously thought this might be a really good movie that had just been shamefully overlooked. It's got a nice, washed-out look that, while derivative of The Ring still worked really well. And Julianne Moore's great as always. And the story doesn't go quite where you expect it to right away. There were some very well played early twists.
But once the story proper is set in motion, that's about all she wrote. You can see all the changes coming a mile away, even as you tell yourself that these twists couldn't possibly be in an actual movie, because they're so stupid.
I'm trying to be vague, becaues this movie folds in on itself several times, so it's hard to talk about the story without giving something away. But, what the hell, it's already on DVD. If you don't want any knowledge of what happens in The Forgotten beyond what's in the previews (Julianne Moore's kid is dead and everyone else but her becomes unaware that he ever existed), stop reading now.
Okay, for all you non-wusses, here's the lowdown. About 15 minutes in, we're told that the son Julianne's been mourning (har!) never existed. That she had a miscarriage and her mind reacted by inventing a nine-year stretch of motherhood, followed by a fictional "tragic" death for her fictional son in a fictional plane crash. Her husband (a blank played by Anthony Edwards, a professional blank) and psychiatrist (Gary Sinise) both insist that her condition (paramnesia, they call it) is perfectly treatable, if only she'll admit to herself that her son, Sam, was never real.
But she can't do that. She's sure that he exists, even if all the evidence points to the contrary. So she takes off running.
And so far, I was totally with the movie. I thought, "Wow, I genuinely have no idea where this is going. Is she crazy? Is everyone else crazy? Is this some sort of glitch in the Matrix?" Unfortunately, the explanation provided by the film is so daffy, so obscenely ridiculous, the movie just falls apart. The deeper we get into explaining how some power is capable of shifting around space-time in order to pull off this elaborate trick, the more I wanted to just shut the damn movie off.
I won't blow the entire film for you, but here's a taste. Moore has found a man, played by Dominic West of HBO's "The Wire," who lost a daughter in the same plane crash that took her son. He has forgotten his daughter Laura, but with some coaxing, he has begun to remember her, and agrees to help Moore in her quest to find out what the fuck is going on. At one point, she explains to him her thought process.
They both remember their kids, so they can't both be crazy. If they're not crazy, someone is manipulating everyone around them, and even physical materials like photos and pictures, to convince them their children never existed. The only group powerful enough to pull this off? Aliens!
Okay, but I've said enough. Once you venture down that particular rabbit hole, there's no going back. The Forgotten basically amounts to a mediocre half-hour "Outer Limits" episode needlessly extended to 90 minutes. By the time we actually meet the nemesis responsible for the disappearances and the forgetfulness, the movie has become a parody of itself.
And everything I enjoyed about the first 20 minutes basically falls by the wayside. Moore's fine establishment of this woman as a real human being ceases to matter once she becomes a vehicle for this moronic plot. She spends the entire final 45 minutes of the movie running from one drab location to another. And even the crisp cinematography becomes less interesting as the film goes on. The entire climax plays out in a dark warehouse (seriously!), giving it the lush look and feel of a made-for-cable erotic thriller. And the so-called "special effects," in which people are snatched up by an invisible hand and shot into the heavens, don't really amount to much.
The film was directed by Joseph Ruben, also responsible for the atrocious Money Train and Sleeping With the Enemy. This guy's career started with the cult classic The Stepfather. Where is the fiendish wit and vitality evident in that film? How can you go from making something utterly genre-defying and original like The Stepfather to completely vapid wannabe horror like The Forgotten?
Honestly, I've wasted too many words on this dumb crap already. I haven't really blown the entire film for you, but I would recommend just avoiding the film entirely and waiting for J. M. to act in something more worthwhile.
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