CHRISTIAN TOTO: Here Collapses Under Weight of Its Gimmick.
Last year, Harrison Ford looked like his old self in “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” The de-aging effects weren’t perfect, but it still felt like Doc Brown’s DeLorean had taken us back to 1981.
Magical.
“Here,” based on the graphic novel by Richard McGuire, takes that visual approach to a new level. However, much like “Dial of Destiny” the film supporting it can’t measure up.
Director Robert Zemeckis reunites “Forrest Gump” alums Tom Hanks and Robin Wright for a cloying drama set in one expansive room.
Really. That’s both a spoiler alert and a warning.
“Here” literally spans millions of years. The story opens with dinosaurs rumbling over a green expanse of land. We fast forward through the centuries until we end up watching that very space taken up by 20th-century Americans.
Yes, Zemeckis and co. are needlessly flexing the production’s CGI budget here for no discernible effect.
We land on several overlapping stories, including the saga of Richard and Margaret (Hanks and Wright). We watch Richard, or Ricky as a boy, grows up before our eyes. The action plays out in the family’s living room, where a long, cozy sofa dominates the room.
Get used to that setup. It’s the only one you’ll see.
F/X gurus de-age both Hanks and Wright to convincingly show them as a young couple, a budding family and, years later, a duo struggling in their empty nest years. It helps that the static shot means few close-up shots.
The trailer sold Here as an intriguing family movie perfect for the holiday season, but according to Toto, it’s a CGI de-aging movie that’s filmed almost entirely on one set? At least Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman had plenty of gangster action in a multitude of locations, in addition to all of the de-aging effects, before its painfully inert last hour.