Forrest Gump: Critic Reviews

Reduces the tumult of the last few decades to a virtual-reality theme park: a baby-boomer version of Disney's America.

Forrest Gump has the elements of an emotionally gripping story. Yet it feels less like a romance than like a coffee-table book celebrating the magic of special effects.

Skillfully adapted by screenwriter Eric Roth, the story belongs in the company of such sweet classics as Rain Man and Harvey.

Hanks is superb, reemploying the childlike presence he brought to Big.

What a magical movie.

Judging by the the movie's enduring popularity, the message that stupidity is redemption is clearly what a lot of Americans want to hear.

A picaresque story of a simpleton's charmed odyssey through 30 years of tumultuous American history, Forrest Gump is whimsy with a strong cultural spine.

This is one summer movie that doesn't evaporate the minute you leave the theater.

Passionate and magical, Forrest Gump is a tonic for the weary of spirit.

Like the best movie actors, Hanks is a superb reactor.

A movie heart-breaker of oddball wit and startling grace.

This Oscar-winner divided critics in its chronicle of the long journey taken by a slow-witted boy through American history and politics, but there was consensus about the high-caliber acting of Hanks, who won a second, consecutive Best Actor Oscar.

Moving and wonderful, but parent preview a good idea.

Even if its success was overblown, so was the backlash.

Forrest may be dumb, but he ain't stupid.

For all its ambition, the movie ends up using great historical events in the service of a dubious sentimentality.

The wearisome Forrest Gump won six Oscars.

Unashamedly sentimental, this is a technically triumphant tear-jerker.

Despite its flaws, this is simply unmissable.

Its flaws don't do it any great harm; it's as comforting as an afternoon nap, but also as refreshing.

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Toeing the centreline like a motherf***er while Rome burns. Can I get an "amen"?

A vile, irresponsible film whose massive success says some very frightening things about America.

Zemeckis's film has lots of heart but little in the way of guts or brains.

As this mawkish conservative movie ultimately goes to prove: ignorance is bliss.