Gone, and well...."Forgotten"

Although I had free tickets to the ballet last night, given to me by a professor I did some work for, I decided that I would rather lay on my couch watching movies. But I didn't want just any movie. I wanted something that would touch me at my core, make me laugh, make me cry, and most importantly, be available for rental. Well, it was not to be. Everything that looked good was already checked out for the evening, so I settled for the DVD of "The Forgotten" starring Julianne Moore and some guy obviously not worth remembering the name of.

Normally, I think Julianne Moore is one of the most alluring actresses of our time. If you doubt this, check out her performance in "Far From Heaven." I'd even wanted to see this movie in the theatre, which my cheap ass does not do, just for Julianne; despire the rather tepid reviews this movie had gotten. Well, I now understand why the reviews were so mediocre. With a horrible slash from cosmic irony, "The Forgotten" is rather forgettable. It's more or less a long X-Files episode, but not even one of the good David Duchovny era episodes. Think one of the last episodes. The Mulder and Scully lacking episodes. The "wow, they really should have stopped last season" episodes.

Where Julianne usually can captivate and enthrall, here she displayed all of the charisma of a cardboard cutout. A stop-motion animation of an oatmeal blob pretending to be Julianne would have given a stronger emotional connection. Yes, there was more emotional connection than the movie "Troy" had, but I've had better emotional connections with text books than I did with anyone in that movie.

So, now that I've sounded completely negative, I should state that the movie isn't bad. Not good, but not bad either. Just forgettable.