Forrest Gump: Review By Daveactor7

A truly remarkable film

The story-a boy named Forrest Gump, tormented by bullies and the difficulties of an ever changing life, grows up to become a man who enters the pages of history unknowingly. Through these important events in history, he struggles with the undying love he has for his best friend Jenny. A story that is definitely one that surrounds an emotional basis. An intriguing story conceived in the wonderful novel written by Winston Groom and adapted into an ingenious screenplay by Eric Roth. The storyline though it is strong, is in some scenes dragged out, making the film unnecessarily longer. However, Roth develops each character very well and that is what he is best at in this film. He focuses on how each character evolves throughout the film. Forrest, though he has a low IQ, understands more about the concept of life. The one main aspect which does not change is his love for Jenny. Jenny evolves through the years as a woman thrust into the age of change, drugs, war, etc. The connection between the two characters keeps them alive throughout the rest of the film and keeping relationships between each character in the film is what is great about Roth's work.

The acting-Tom Hanks gives one of his most marvelous performances in his career as Forrest Gump. He adapts his voice into a very genuine southern accent mixed with the attentiveness of his character's low IQ, that is an excellent achievement right there alone. He also conveys strong emotions into his character at the right times, helping us to care for his character. It is no surprise that he won the oscar for best actor of 1994. Robin Wright portrays Jenny and she does a great job here, portraying one's evolution through difficult times. I'd have to say, her character is perhaps the most emotionally unstable one in the film and she pulls this off so well. Gary Sinise plays Lt. Dan Taylor and he is fantastic, playing a man who was once obsessed with the thought of warfare and death, evolving into a man seeking redemption and a new life. Sinise also does well in portraying a veteran with a strong emotional concept which made me believe his performance entirely. His oscar nomination was well deserved. Sally Field portrays Forrest's mother and she is definitely a character of great importance, helping Forrest grow up in this life, and showing him the strong basis of love. The entire cast does excellent and they succeed in bringing this film to life in more ways then one.

The directing-Robert Zemeckis who had directed the "back to the future"trilogy before this film took the reins and led it to becoming the film which would win best picture. I give him props here for in this film he grasps the sense of drama and the aspect of life firmly that is pretty obvious now that he has now become a great director. He also pulls out so much from his actors that they gave performances that really captivated thousands.

The visuals-the cgi here, I must say, is truly outstanding. Industrial light and magic does a great job in keeping the computer generated effects as realistic as possible. Their works that I loved most of all in this film was how Forrest seamlessly interacts with the presidents, even when some of them had already died. What ILM did was that they took photographs of presidents, old footages, and replaced certain characters within that film with Forrest. They basically moved the mouths of the presidents around to make them appear as if they were talking and their voices were done by not the presidents themselves, but with different actors. Excellent work there which garnered them another oscar from the previous year's "Jurassic Park". The cinematography here is great as well. Cinematographer Don Burgess captures the visuals in a way that gives so much meaning. One shot I loved in particular was when Forrest retrieved his wounded friend, Bubba, from the jungles in Vietnam. That long shot represented the countless trees as obstacles that stood in Forrest's way. No matter what however, he still went past them to bring Bubba back. With the addition of fiery explosions behind him, it also adds to show that Forrest will go through anything to help out a friend. Something he never really had in his childhood.

The score-Alan Silvestri does a superb job here, using each piece to capture so much from not only the characters, but the film itself. One piece I loved was when Forrest left Jenny's grave and the faint notes with the usage of piano and a soothing stroking of harp definitely does well in keeping the sadness of the scene.

Overall, the film is great and it definitely is one which you will never forget.

This has been a review by daveactor7 :)