If only I could forget “The Forgotten”

By Lindsay Bianchi
lbianchi@TheCitizenNews.com

It seems that the only thing anyone forgot in this movie was a decent ending. The suspense builds convincingly enough until the last ten minutes when the story falls flatter than a pancake.

I still feel cheated by this incredibly lame film. It makes me wonder if the script was being written as the movie was being made. On the other hand, how did this story make it to the screen in the first place? That’s the real mystery here.

Julianne Moore and Gary Sinese have little more to do here besides look confused as they run from one bad scene to the next. The ever-popular conspiracy nut routine plays a big part in this mess making people behave strangely. As it turns out, there is a conspiracy, yet it is so dumb that when it finally hits you, all you can say is, “Huh?”

Stop reading now if you don’t want to know the horrible truth of “The Forgotten” because I am about to spell it out as a public service to lovers of suspense and sci-fi. That’s right, aliens have come to earth, who knows how long ago, to “experiment” on humans, manipulating their lives to see what makes them tick.

Their latest lab rat, Julianne Moore, has had her son taken by the bulletproof spacemen so that they can study the bond between mother and child. That seems like a good reason to travel across the galaxies. Perhaps movie aliens are running out of reasons to visit our little planet and the only thing left to study are the curious emotions that we humans cling to.

Moore is convinced that her son is real and that her husband, Anthony Edwards, and her shrink, Sinese are gaslighting her for no reason. With the help of a neighbor, who she convinces is a victim of the same hoax, she makes her way closer and closer to the truth. When the moment comes in which a mysterious man is tracked down in an abandoned warehouse, the aliens pull out of the project and everything goes back to normal.

I wish someone from outerspace would experiment on me and remove the memory of this movie from my head. I know I can never get the ninety plus minutes back, but to just have it submerged a little bit would be nice.

This “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” without the sunshine. This is “Dark City” without the dark. This is just bad, OK? Stay home and rent either one of those great films instead.