Can't help but agree here. When I first saw it I liked it, but a repeat viewing a few years later left me cold, and I have seldom been tempted to revisit it.
I think part of it may simply be the nature of the character and the story. It's pretty cloying, and the character feels gimmicky, as does Tom Hanks' performance, which is not one of his best. In today's terms, you might call it "cringe" -- I'm not one of those who thinks that an actor must always share all of the characteristics of a character they play; imagining one's self as a different sort of person is part of the acting process. Still, I can't help but think of this film's heavy leaning on audience sympathy for a character with physical and developmental disabilities as a bit cheap. I keep hearing the voice of Robert Downey, Jr. in TROPIC THUNDER, as he describes playing such characters as naked Oscar bait in the most hilariously cynical and outrageous terms, which I feel are more true than Hollywood would like to admit.
I dislike it for different reasons than you. It's laughably ham-handed. It's little more than taking every Boomer Generation highlight and dropping the simpleton into the middle of it, and making him the unwitting hero of each moment. It's cinema that panders to the lowest common denominator.
Can't help but agree here. When I first saw it I liked it, but a repeat viewing a few years later left me cold, and I have seldom been tempted to revisit it.
I think part of it may simply be the nature of the character and the story. It's pretty cloying, and the character feels gimmicky, as does Tom Hanks' performance, which is not one of his best. In today's terms, you might call it "cringe" -- I'm not one of those who thinks that an actor must always share all of the characteristics of a character they play; imagining one's self as a different sort of person is part of the acting process. Still, I can't help but think of this film's heavy leaning on audience sympathy for a character with physical and developmental disabilities as a bit cheap. I keep hearing the voice of Robert Downey, Jr. in TROPIC THUNDER, as he describes playing such characters as naked Oscar bait in the most hilariously cynical and outrageous terms, which I feel are more true than Hollywood would like to admit.
I dislike it for different reasons than you. It's laughably ham-handed. It's little more than taking every Boomer Generation highlight and dropping the simpleton into the middle of it, and making him the unwitting hero of each moment. It's cinema that panders to the lowest common denominator.