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Chris Gore and Alan Ng review “Here,” now playing in theaters.
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0:03
all right here is the very ambitious
0:06
film from Robert zus of course brought
0:09
us uh such Classics as Back to the
0:11
Future series and Polar Express which I
0:16
did not like here is incredibly
0:19
ambitious for its concept the concept is
0:23
it takes a location on Earth and shows
0:26
you everything that happened in that
0:28
location starting with the
0:31
dinosaurs and then the The Ice
0:35
Age let me let me just clarify it's it's
0:38
as if he took a camera placed it in one
0:40
spot and that camera never moved exactly
0:43
that's what it does and it it it's very
0:45
clever so it goes through it mostly
0:48
focuses on one family which is uh the
0:52
family that uh Tom hanks's character the
0:54
younger family is a part of the young
0:56
family Tom Hanks plays Richard young
0:59
Robin Wright plays is Margaret young but
1:01
there and Paul betney is Al Young uh uh
1:04
Richard's father but it also takes you
1:08
through other stories in time um the
1:11
Indians colonial times the when the
1:15
house was first built sort of a a almost
1:18
Victorian era family into the the 20s a
1:22
guy who invites the invents the relax a
1:25
boy chair he and his uh wife that does
1:28
burlesque and uh a nude photography
1:31
which I thought was very entertaining I
1:32
laughed at that that was fun um it's it
1:37
it what's kind of weird about it is I
1:40
kind of liked it what but based on the
1:42
trailer I expected to really get
1:45
emotionally involved and I felt like it
1:48
moved around so much that it was like
1:51
seeing a bunch of short films
1:54
intercut so there's no the continuity
1:57
goes back and forth between all the
1:59
stories and what will happen is it's
2:02
very very clever the concept is a 10 out
2:05
of 10 the story is a five out of 10 okay
2:11
because the concept is you'll see a
2:13
little square one square will be in a
2:16
different time period than the one we're
2:18
watching and it will fade to that
2:22
square there was so much time and effort
2:25
spent on making these things blend it's
2:28
so clever
2:30
but the cleverness is kind of you know
2:35
over overshadows the stories which are
2:38
very the story of a family and um
2:41
Richard Margaret young you see them as
2:44
kids you know they conceive a child on
2:47
the couch she's pregnant they have to
2:49
get married and move into this house
2:52
with their family to be able to afford
2:54
to survive you see the other stories
2:57
play out in different eras but they're
2:59
all intercut people who have who have um
3:03
resided in this home and it I love it's
3:07
very very clever but not anything really
3:11
super I mean there's some light social
3:16
commentary like the uh Indians and uh
3:20
the colonial times you'll see their
3:21
slaves building things but it doesn't
3:25
hit you over the head um so I don't know
3:29
I want but the thing that also really
3:31
bothered me the fact that the story is
3:33
kind of we've seen there seen it been
3:35
there done that and it was all predict
3:37
very predictable very predictable um was
3:41
the fact that like Tom hanks's face is
3:44
grafted on to Young people's bodies same
3:47
with Robin Wright so you're looking at
3:50
it it's like this you know gangly
3:51
teenage kid with a like a Tom Hank AI
3:54
face I'll say Leo Cody probably worked
3:57
on this did a good job um
4:00
but but that was a little distracting a
4:04
little distracting so there were the
4:06
ages the time periods the bouncing back
4:09
and forth there are threads that all pay
4:12
off which I thought was great like that
4:15
that worked but ultimately the story of
4:17
Five the concept of 10 I could go on but
4:21
I expected based on the trailer I
4:25
expected to be
4:26
moved and it just wasn't there for me I
4:30
expected to be really really it just
4:34
didn't work overall but
4:36
ambitious very ambitious Allan what did
4:39
you think of here yeah I agree with you
4:41
for the most part uh I do like the
4:43
concept um the opening segment the
4:47
opening moments of the movie is just
4:49
really using the com the the the concept
4:52
in hypers speed uh just so you get an
4:55
idea of how the the gimmick Works um but
5:00
I agree with
5:01
you in terms of the story I'll tell you
5:04
why I I had a problem with it u i do
5:06
improv uh be doing improv tomorrow at
5:09
the National Comedy theater and one of
5:11
the IDE that that I bring or that I
5:14
bring to my style of improv is the idea
5:16
of stakes meaning if you're G to go on
5:18
stage and you're G to do a scene you
5:20
can't you have to have some Stakes if
5:23
the stakes are too low it's a boring
5:24
scene for example if I'm going in to uh
5:27
you know to tell my wife what a
5:28
wonderful day it is and I hope you know
5:31
we got a plan for the trip to
5:32
grandmothers uh the stakes are fairly
5:34
low if I go and buy a a bag of groceries
5:38
the stakes are very low and this is what
5:40
this movie felt like is that the stakes
5:43
were just too low to make it
5:45
interesting uh the Le let's put it this
5:49
way uh this could have been the story
5:53
told could have been the story of my
5:55
life and quite frankly my life is not
5:57
that interesting to make a movie out
6:00
and and I think what you're seeing here
6:02
is just a story about normal average
6:05
people going through normal average
6:06
things the the the conceit here is that
6:09
the that the Tom Hanks and Robin Wright
6:11
character they're living with Tom Tom's
6:15
family with with Allan and the mother
6:17
Allen Rose and um you know there's
6:20
they're feeling claustrophobic
6:22
Ironically in this and um something
6:26
everyone experiences and to make a
6:28
hundred million doll move about that
6:30
just seems kind of like a waste of time
6:32
uh the the other thing is that again
6:36
yeah mundane
6:37
story The there is a bit of virtue
6:40
signaling which I found kind of
6:41
interesting because at one point there's
6:44
a black couple that a black family that
6:46
lives in the house and these side
6:50
stories that happen uh outside of the
6:53
young family um they're more asides you
6:56
know they sometimes hit the theme of
6:58
what they're portraying in the in the
7:00
young story um but you know they're
7:02
inconsequential to to the overall all
7:05
story and when it came to the black
7:07
family the
7:08
harrises um there's a they're not on
7:12
that screen very much uh and so you
7:15
there's a moment where you forget that
7:16
there is even a story about a black
7:18
family but but what you do remember is
7:20
in one scene the father is sitting down
7:23
with his son telling him exactly how to
7:26
handle uh a police pullover so you don't
7:29
get shot
7:30
yeah they had to include that so is yeah
7:32
and well let me let me just let me just
7:34
finish the point is that this is when
7:37
you have this is what we call
7:39
stereotypes because when you have a
7:41
black family in your movie you have to
7:43
have a scene about the police and police
7:45
violence and things like that and you
7:48
know you don't see that with all the
7:50
other couples for some reason because
7:52
you finally added a black family a uh a
7:55
minority family in the movie you've got
7:57
to show minority oppression and because
8:00
you don't deal with that family much it
8:02
comes off as virtue signaling and it
8:04
really stands out which is why I
8:06
remember that scene very
8:07
vividly yeah it there are a few moments
8:10
like that like with the Indian artifacts
8:12
in their backyard and that those
8:14
students that come over like and they
8:16
really do force it like so we have to
8:19
only show this Frame it never moves it
8:22
never moves that that they set up that
8:24
rule and they kind of it's kind of like
8:27
a um found footage movie where they have
8:29
to preser effort the effort that goes to
8:33
preserving the concept of a found
8:35
footage movie sometimes overshadows the
8:38
story and that's what happened here the
8:40
concept forcing this concept so strongly
8:45
that you see it affects I did like the
8:47
change in technology I like the couple
8:49
with the you know relaxa boy chair that
8:52
was funny and she he like posed naked
8:55
for him which I thought was great very
8:57
tasteful um yeah here's here's one other
9:00
thing we I mentioned it last week when I
9:02
reviewed the Alfred Hitchcock
9:05
documentary but um in film you've got to
9:08
somehow connect with the character
9:09
connect with the the the the family the
9:12
the
9:13
story and when your camera is not moving
9:16
you are literally the fly on the wall
9:19
and when you're the fly on the wall you
9:20
just observing you're you're watching a
9:22
fish tank a fish bowl and you're not
9:24
really interacting with the fish in the
9:27
tank and here I felt the same way I'm
9:29
not really interacting with that I'm
9:30
just watching what's going on and and if
9:33
you watch the Alfred Hitchcock
9:35
documentary you you see how he uses
9:37
camera how he uses camera movement uh
9:40
camera placement to get you to uh follow
9:43
your to put yourselves in the shoes of
9:45
the characters you're watching and
9:47
that's impossible with this gimmick that
9:49
we have
9:50
here so I I give it a bare recommend but
9:54
the concept is uh deserves deserves
9:58
credit thought I think it's worth seeing
10:00
once absolutely yeah just just to see it
10:04
I give it a bare recommendation too yeah
10:06
see here once
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