Here (2025)

This is a terrible movie and you should not be lured in by the fact that it has a competent director, Robert Zemeckis, who has directed enjoyable films and Tom Hanks in a lead acting role. Even if you are on a long haul flight you will be disappointed. The film, based on the 2014 graphic novel by Richard McGuire, is to plunk the camera down in one place to illustrate all of the events that have occurred in that very spot throughout history, using frames-within-the-frame to transition from one point in time to the next. Now, I loved the David Mason book, Northwoods, which did something like this, but the content of this is boring, and at no point does it improve. At first, it is open land that gives us glimpses of everything from the dinosaurs perishing to Native Americans living their lives to the home of Benjamin Franklin’s estranged son. As the 20th century arrives, the location becomes a duplex’s living room, and we begin observing the lives of some of those living within its walls. Apparently the director (unbeknownst to me--I learned this afterwards from a reviewer who, if possible, liked the movie less than I did) trying to evoke memories of “Forrest Gump” by reuniting the key members of that film’s creative team—the package also includes screenwriter Eric Roth, composer Alan Silvestri, and cinematographer Don Burgess—in the hopes of getting something of equal appeal. What he doesn’t have, however, are two things that made that film work—a compelling narrative and a darkly humorous undertone that helped prevent it from being overwhelmed by sentimentality.