The Forgotten: How I should remember the movie of the same name (spoilers)

Cafe Society
1

I want those 88 minutes of my life back.

When I saw who was in this movie, I thought “Hey, how could I lose?” Julianne Moore, Anthony Edwards, Gary Sinise, Dominic West, and Alfre Woodard? That’s a cast!

And the plot – a woman mourning the death of her son suddenly finds out that there are no records of her son, and nobody remembers her son. Not her shrink, her neighbors, not even her husband. The NY Times doesn’t even have a record of her son’s plane crashing, in which nine children died.

This is compelling stuff. Sounds like a an idea for a great movie. Maybe someday someone will make one.

What do we get instead?

UNBOXED SPOILERS FOLLOW

Space aliens. Yep. Stupid farging space aliens are abducting kids for experiments. What are the experiments? Why, they have travelled through the vast reaches of space, defying incredible odds and fantastic dangers, so they can measure…

…wait for it…

…a mother’s love for her children! Yep, you read that right. That have actually developed scientific instruments to measure how much human females miss their dead children.

All in the name of science, right?

But wait, it gets better. When the main alien measures that, in one case, the measurement turns out to be “a whole lot”, he somehow deigns the experiment to be a failure. And his reaction is “Boy, my supervisor is gonna be pissed!”

He somehow ressurects the dead son (and at least one other child), or implants the memory of this child in her head (but no one else’s, somehow or other). And this gives us a nice happy Hollywood ending.

I want my 88 minutes back. I want my $3.99 back. I want those actors back in respectable and non-stupid movies.

2

Very, very disapointing. The first 20 -30 minutes, when they were setting up the plot, were pretty good and got me excited to see the rest. But it took a vertical nose-dive after that. Complete waste of time.

3

Don’t feel so bad. I paid to see this in a theater. I was faced with the option of that or “Wimbledon”.

But I have a thing for Julianne Moore. Yet I was so disappointed that she got stuck with such a bad streak.

Later on in the film, when Julianne Moore confronts Anthony Edwards and he no longer recognizes her, I would say, “Hey, if a woman who looks that comes up to me and says she’s my wife, I’ll think twice before blowing her off.”

4

What an outright piece of cagal. I actually liked the setup and the acting, I enjoyed the production values, and I was completely fascinated with the people being snatched up and away thing. I estimate that I found almost two thirds of the film enjoyable.

I should have quit watching while I was ahead and imagined the rest of the movie myself.

Apparently alien civilizations have a concept of science that is inferior even to Holliwood writers.

5

I’m glad I went to http://www.themoviespoiler.com and absorbed the story in a matter of minutes.

6

[QUOTE=Abe]
What an outright piece of cagal. QUOTE]

“Cagal”?

7

Now, they’ve released the DVD including what purports to be a totally different edit that is practically a different version of the movie? Anyone seen that? Opinion?

8

I liked it. But unlike most of the people I’ve talked to who didn’t, I expected it to be about aliens before I watched it - recs like “If you like the X-Files” are a give away. I don’t know what other explaination other people were looking for after the part in the first 1/3rd of the when they suggested that it wasbe aliens who were watching them since “no one else could set things up like that”…

9

Ah. The only advertizing I saw was that “They try to erase her son.” Compelling enough. What explanation was I looking for? I don’t know, but I felt compelled to keep watching because the final explanation must be something truly extraordinary. Which is why it was so disappointing when the writers fell back on stock copout #26.

10

Well, it has a different ending, but the rest of the movie is the same. Frankly, the theatrical ending was, IMHO, much better. Then again, I thought the movie as a whole was OK, so perhaps you might like the ending I didn’t.

In the revised ending, there’s much less of a chase through the airplane hangar. All that glass window hallways (which were where the actual hangar ended and a set began, according to the commentary) were not in it. There was this weird scene in Sam’s bedroom with Telly trying to reach him and getting zapped by lightening bolts a la The Emperor in RotJ. She struggles to reach him, Alien Dude says the pain will stop if she just forgets, she perseveres, blah, blah, blah. Finally, she fails to reach Sam, Alien Dude wipes a bunch of memories from her and we’re back to her gasping like a gutted halibut on the floor. Alien Dude asks her if she remembers the boy and she says no. (She does not have her Ripley-inspired strong momma recovery.) He says something like, “You’ll be the only one to remember this,” and then sends her back to the street, running. Sam’s room and the park are the same, including her reunion with Ash on the swings where she remembers him but he’s hazy on her. The only difference here is a couple of intercuts where Alien Dude is walking around the park and smiles at her. I think she smiles back at him.

So basically we have:
Theatrical version: Telly is one strong Mo’fo Momma who won’t forget her beautiful baby boy for anything. Maternal love triumphs over alien science and creepy scary evil bad guy is punished. Things go back to normal, everyone has their kids back.

Alternate version: Telly tries really hard, but succombs to curious (but not evil) alien science in the end. Things go back to normal, everyone has their kids back.

Obviously, both versions are intellectually stupid, but I found the theatrical one more emotionally satisfying.

If it makes you feel better, even the director and writer were a little harsh on the film in the commentary. At one point the director says something like, “The only person who would think this makes sense is the writer.” The writer delights in pointing out plot holes, or, as he calls them, “cheats.”

11

Just so you won’t totally hate a good title, try to find a three-part British production (aired on Mystery! here in the States) entitled Forgotten. Stars Paul McGann (the “George Lazanby” of Doctor Whos) and Amanda Burton. From around 2001.

Sir Rhosis

12

Thid could have been a good movie. When Juliana Moore saw the space ship in the clouds, I was really hoping that she ended up being completely delusional, and that it ended with her being institutionalized, or medicated or something like that to end or at least minimize her delusions. Because there are people out there who really believe things like that. At least they claim to. I was really hoping that it ended up being a story about mental illness, and not about goddamn little green men. And it could have been, up until the last half hour.

13

Yep. This movie went wrong where A Beautiful Mind went right.

14

The Forgotten was better back when it was Dark City. Same basic plot, but more stylish and it never tried to trick you into thinking you were watching a psychological drama.

I did like the effect of people getting yanked off into the sky in mid-sentence. But that was about it!

EZ

15

Sadly, this is so true: see Signs, Armageddon…

16

I knew I’d heard that somewhere… Standard-issue army grunt swear from thousands of years in the future.

{see, it’s not really a hijack because we’re in CS, and the word in question is from a book, see?}

17

Thing is, this is the ending I expected, and would have found it trite and derivative. I don’t think there was any good way to wind up the film, given the buildup…in a lot of ways, it reminded me of Crichton’s and King’s works.

Much preferred the theatrical end, though…but my perfect ending would have been one in which she loses…it would have been the most believable.

18

I saw this on DVD last night, and IMO the alternate ending is much better.

  1. The theatrical ending paints the alien as a cartoonish villain, when up to that point he’d just been invincible and detached. He took a handful of bullets in the back and didn’t even blink. Now he’s suddenly so pissed off at Julianne Moore for not playing along that he strangles her?

  2. It also shows that the aliens have no understanding of science. His “experiment”, in the theatrical version, was more of an order from above: make these people forget their children, or else. In the alternate version, it actually seems that he’s trying to learn about this connection between mother and child, and once he learns that it couldn’t be severed in this one case (she forgot Sam for an instant, then remembered again), he’s done.

  3. It doesn’t explain why the kids come back after Moore defeats the alien. What, the alien’s bosses are such hardasses that they yank the dude through a ceiling in midsentence for “failing” at his “experiment”, but then they send everyone’s children back just to be nice?

Neither ending, however, explained why an omnipotent alien would need a front company (or any other part of the ruse about a plane crash on the way to summer camp).

19

Hey, “Wimbledon” ain’t that bad, it has a slow-paced, classy feel. It reminded me of a Carey Grant romance with brain damage (the dialogue wasn’t as keen).

That said, even if you DO find “Wimbledon” crappy, “The Forgotten” was so much worse. I was working at BB when this came out and I had to rent it to people. I winced every time.

20

Yeah, this movie is at the very top of my “Movies that suck” list. Whenever there is a thread about bad movies, I rush to add this one.