My Review of "Forrest Gump"

Forrest Gump is a fun coming of age movie that came out back in 1994. I remember watching back when it first game out and was mesmerized by everything about it. The special effects blew my mind and I was completely engrossed in the story. Everything about it was amazing but I wonder what my reaction to this movie would be thirty years later.

The movie starts out with a simple minded man named Forrest Gump who is sitting by a bus station waiting for the bus. Along comes another person waiting for the bus. Forrest is a man of below level intelligence but has a good heart. He decides to make conversation at the bus stop much to the hesitation of the other person waiting. In this conversation he decides to tell his life story.

The movie recounts his amazing adventures as a man with simple opportunities and was able to capitalize on most of them. He talks about his accomplishments and his tragic losses. Most of all he talks about his love for his childhood sweetheart Jenny.

It's interesting how this movie weaves everything together in a very cohesive and comprehensive manner. In fact, I love the way a lot of the transitions are done in this movie and I never really paid attention lot those things when I first saw this movie. There is a lot of meticulous scene placements or dialogue that foreshadow things to come. I can see why this movie flows so well now.

The special effects don't quite dazzle as well as they used to back in the day. For the time this movie was made they were revolutionary. Today they still look good but it feels a lot cornier than it did back in the day. I can now really tell how they were used as joke props. The movie feels a lot more self aware of itself than it did back in the day. I don't know how that works but it's almost as if the movie knows it's not to be taken seriously. There are scenes that are utterly ridiculous that I did find weird when I first saw this movie but I kind of now get what they were trying to do. They still do feel weird and out of place for this movie though.

Thirty years later there have been so many references to this movie that watching this movie now feels a little corny as well. I can identify a lot of tropes and themes that were imitated from this movie in other movies. For some reason seeing them again in this movie made it felt way cornier than when I first saw it. I found it weird because I knew this movie was the first movie that I saw some of these things took place.

I also empathized more with the Jenny character this time around than I did back in the day. I have a way better understanding of what some of the characters were all about now than I had back in the day. Thirty years ago I only had a narrow viewpoint and that was only towards the main character. I didn't understand that the trauma she was going through would effect her throughout her whole life. The abuse being a reason why she continued to fall into abusive relationships.

There's also a weird admiration that they kept the racist imagery and dialogue in the movie to make the film feel accurate to the times that they were depicting. Again, there is so many details in the movie that they took care of that I never really understood.

Overall, thirty years later I see this movie in a different light. I took more out of this experience than I did back in the day. These experiences are both for the better and for the worse. Nostalgically this movie still draws me in. I can't help but get hypnotized into this story when it's on though. It's a very fun story and I couldn't help but have a smile on my face while watching it. I have to give it an 8.5 out of 10. It's still a classic for me.