Movie Report: "The Forgotten"

This 2004 movie almost got forgotten in the depths of my DV-R -- it had been hanging out there for months before I got around to watching it.

Julianne Moore, who usually has a good sense for scripts, plays a woman who can't get over the death of her young son.

OK, it's a grieving yuppie flick of the "I sit in my Range Rover and sip Starbucks and bemoan my terrible fate" variety. I consider seeing what's on Cartoon Network.

Eh, I hate "Ed, Edd and Eddy." Back to the movie.

About 10 minutes later, I'm thinking "grieving yuppie" is veering into "yuppie struggles with mental illness." OK, that could be more interesting, and now there's Gary Sinise, so that's cool.

Then Moore shows up on the doorstep of an alcoholic ex-hockey player, rips up his wallpaper and tells him he has a kid he doesn't remember. The funny thing is that not only does he not kick her out when he realizes he's not gonna score, he ends up buying this story and goes on the run with her.

Who are they on the run from? The NSA. Why does the NSA care? I don't know -- maybe dead kids are in the Patriot Act somewhere.

Then the movie makes a left turn right into "The X-Files."

I enjoyed the whole people getting sucked into the sky bit and the story was interesting, if pretty implausible. (Gary Sinise's big "revelation" killed it for me.) What I really didn't like was the ending -- it felt tacked on, it didn't fit the dark feel of the rest of the story and I have a feeling some lame studio executive said "make it happier!"

Not the best movie I've seen lately, but it was better than an "Ed, Edd and Eddy" marathon.