What’s great about Zemeckis is that even though he shot himself in the foot with his obsession with incorporating motion capture into his films, his understanding of visual storytelling hasn’t wavered. While the motion-captured humans in his animated films “Polar Express” and “Beowulf” (which also starred Hanks and Wright, respectively) are jarring, the actual films run like clockwork and are full of compelling ideas and mesmerizing sequences. Thankfully, judging by the trailer, “Here” seems like that, too. It seems more solid in tone and theme than “Welcome to Marwen.” Aside from the eerily smooth facial rejuvenation of Hanks and Wright, this seems like an interesting continuation of a motif Zemeckis has used time and time again in his career, going all the way back to “Back to the Future.”
Best case scenario, “Here” will be a bit like “The Irishman” in the sense that we get used to the de-aging CGI and it doesn’t get in the way of the rest of the movie, worst case scenario, well, we’ll just end up watching most of Zemeckis’ work from the last 20 years.
“Here,” starring Paul Bettany, Kelly Reilly and Michelle Dockery, is written by Zemeckis and Forrest Gump screenwriter Eric Roth and is set to hit theaters on November 15, 2024.
