The Forgotten
Metascore
43 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 34 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 34
  2. Mixed: 21 out of 34
  3. Negative: 8 out of 34
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  1. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jack Mathews
    38
    The last act, when the movie falls apart like a cheap toy, is both a deus ex machina and an anticlimax.
  2. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Megan Lehmann
    38
    The worst crime perpetrated in the Swiss-cheese screenplay by Gerald Di Pego ("Angel Eyes") is the cynical use of a mother's love for her child as a plot device for an intelligence-insulting sci-fi dud.
  3. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Mike Clark
    38
    All this dreary movie has is a terrible whodunit payoff.
  4. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    30
    My favorite line from the movie: "The god---- truth won't fit in your brain." How's that for cheap gimmicks for getting out of having to make a movie make sense?
  5. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Keith Phipps
    30
    Though it soon devolves into a laughable mess, The Forgotten at least spends its first 10 minutes or so raising provocative questions.
  6. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    30
    In the preposterous thriller The Forgotten, a pseudospiritual, mumbo-jumbo, science-fiction inflected mess, the director Joseph Ruben does not just fail to tap into Ms. Moore's talent; he barely gets her attention.
  7. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Carrie Rickey
    25
    Tedious and incoherent thriller.
  8. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    10
    It's "The Sixth Sense" as nonsense, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" without the sunshine. Or the mind.
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User Reviews

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User Score
5.5 out of 10

Mixed or average reviews- based on 119 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 23 out of 66
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 66
  3. Negative: 31 out of 66
  1. Lopez17
    5
    What if someone told you that your child never existed that it was all just apart of your imagination that you dreamed up a happy life, with a happy little boy/girl. Then one day you wake up and that child is suddenly forgotten pictures, videos, friends everyone who knew your child suddenly has forgotten that he/she ever existed. Joseph Ruben's "The Forgotten" explores themes relating to the above statement, Ruben's film tells the story of a grieving mother named Telly Paretta (Julianne Moore) who fourteen months ago lost her nine-year-old son Sam in a plane crash and every day she goes to her and looks at his precious baseball cap and catcherâ… Full Review »
  2. TinaA.
    10
    Are you people insane? This movie was amazing, and one of the best thrillers ever! Ms. Moore was spectacular!
  3. WriteFilmLive21
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view. "The Forgotten" is, in short, a movie quite worth forgetting. The initial premise is intriguing - Julianne Moore plays a mother who lost her son in a plane crash, only to realize that the child was supposedly stillborn and she has invented 9 years of memories with him. Unfortunately, it doesn't take long at all before the film goes from interesting to bland and silly. At 91 minutes, the movie is astonishingly short for what it's trying to do, resulting in consistent overpacing - it feels you've only been watching 10 minutes before Moore's confronting the idea that her son never existed, and about 5 minutes later she's joined up with a father in a similar predicament and on the run from NSA agents. And just when this movie seems to strike the most basic level of boring, our characters come to the realization that their kids are still alive, and have really been . . . (sigh) . . . abducted by aliens. Really? Aliens? We went from an engaging psychological thriller to aliens? And of all the scientific research priorities such aliens would have upon discovering our species, the one they choose is kidnapping children to see if they can dissolve the parent-child bond? Is this a drama or a comedy? The main alien villain (who shows up about 5 minutes in and is a patently obvious "secret" antagonist right off) is probably the blandest and most nonchalant extraterrestrial ever put to film, whose one single freak-out moment is reserved for a cheap CGI face gimmick and a bunch of breaking glass (because, you know, yelling solves everything). And outside of Moore herself, the rest of the characters might as well be forgotten also, because they're about as memorable and deep as the aliens. Honestly, this film should have ended 20 minutes in - Moore finds out she's nuts, she's locked up, the end. Nice, neat, and a big time-saver. A shame her talents went toward such a lazily-written film.… Full Review »
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